People!

"Remind me to talk to you about people," Liz Brixey said Tuesday as the K-12 beat was running to and from election places to talk to voters.

We never did get to that conversation, but I did talk to many many people Tuesday. Thursday, Friday and Sunday I called more people. I'm pretty sure I know what she wanted to tell me: the beat hasn't been on the ground enough, we haven't spoken to real people enough about their concerns.

I have spoken with community members, ex-school board members and ex-administrators. No one I spoke with had been quoted in a newspaper for at least a year. Several refused to go "on the record."

These were conversations. I had a list of questions to ask, but used them only as a starting point. Every conversation stretched to about an hour about the leadership history of the district.

I'm a young, inexperienced reporter. I'm impressionable. When I talk to administrators, my writing veers towards jargon. When I discuss theory behind student achievement, I unconsciously slip in academese.

But when I talk to people, the writing comes easily and is straightforward.

And they appreciate it. I think we contribute to the image of the school district as an unfeeling unit instead of an organization of teachers and administrators. We call administrators, translate the jargon, pair it with some commentary from well-known district critics or numbers and call it a day.

These conversations have brought an entirely different view of the school district to light. There is a history here, of people. And I do think that the history is newsworthy. It's driving a lot of the action, and it puts Tuesday's tax levy failure into context.

So I'm writing a history/analysis hybrid. If nothing else, it's an excuse to listen to people we and the Tribune stopped calling five years ago.