As the social media manager for DC Public Schools, Le keeps parents posted on Twitter, snaps pictures of students and documents on-the-ground stories of school reform in the District.
What was your own K-12 experience like? I went to school in Fairfax County, and my public school experience was great. Really normal — I went to school and I went home and I did homework and went back to school. My wife is a teacher, and when she was working out in West Oakland, Calif., which is a high-poverty, high-crime area, I was so impressed by the kids and how they were able to overcome so much. And here, the District is really the epicenter [of urban school reform].
So what do you do on a day-to-day basis?
My job is to make students feel proud of their schools. It’s kind of a wishy-washy goal, but if you’re proud of your school, you’re going to go every day, and that’s a good thing. So one thing I did is we went to H.D. Woodson Senior High School, and I tweeted a simple picture with a little story about how our students are honing their reading and writing skills through a summer music-production class. A radio station called us up and said they wanted to talk to the kids. When we can be a microphone for our students and shine a better light on them, that’s awesome.
You interact so much with kids in the District. Any lessons you’ve learned from them?
You know what opened my eyes? I read people’s tweets, and one of the things I noticed when I first started working here was how negative our students were about DCPS as a whole [because of negative news stories], but then they loved their local school. … It’s important for them to know there are really talented and really smart students across the city just as passionate as they are.
– Lisa Gartner?
