Networks Beat Chaos: How Community Strengthens K-12 HR

A deepfake with a boss’s voice. A viral post that turns a school into a headline. A teacher’s split-second decision in a chaotic classroom. We dive into the real frontiers of K-12 HR and the practical systems that keep leaders steady when everything moves fast.

Stephanie Dobbins (Executive Director, GASPA) and Tyler Gwyn (Executive Director of HR, Cherokee County Schools; GASPA president-elect) open the playbook on modern school HR: ethical guidance for AI, investigation readiness for synthetic media, and smart social media response when community emotions run high. We talk through the power of the GASPA network—conferences, the Gaggle forum, and monthly webinars—where HR pros swap vetted handbooks, sample letters, policy templates, and real-world advice that saves time and reduces risk.

We also tackle employee well-being with a focus on access and prevention: state health benefits, EAP programs, and how districts are normalizing mental health support. On recruitment and retention, Tyler shares a sharper strategy than perks alone: analyze behavior trends post-COVID, retrain on the code of ethics, and design immediate supports that help teachers de-escalate and avoid career-ending mistakes. It’s a candid look at how data, community, and preparedness create stability for students and staff.

If you lead people in schools—HR, principals, superintendents, finance, or curriculum—this conversation offers concrete steps, credible resources, and direct access points to PSC, DOE, and TRS guidance. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs stronger HR support, and leave a review with one question you want us to tackle next.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Intros

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Gale Unscripted, where leadership meets learning and real conversations drive real impact. I'm Ben Wiggins, Executive Director of Gale. Join us as we go beyond the headlines with Georgia's top education leaders. Let's elevate the conversation. Welcome, Gail family. Welcome back to another exciting episode of Gail Unscripted. We've got a great episode today. We've got members here from GASPA, our GASPA organization. We've got Tyler and Stephanie. Stephanie, why don't you start us off? Introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll move over to Tyler.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Thank you, Ben. I'm Stephanie Dobbins, Executive Director of GASPA, which is Georgia Association of School Personnel Administrators. And I have been retired about four years from a school system. And so am really enjoying uh running this professional association. And when I say running it, it's because we have a great board and great members. You do. And um so we have a lot of um tremendous uh support and benefits available for K-12 HR professionals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Well tell her all where did you retire from?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

I retired from Griffin Spaulding. So that was my hometown is Griffin. I don't think I knew that.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

I knew that's where you retired from.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Yes. But I started my career. Actually, I did it um opposite of what most people in education do, because I've worked at the Department of Education at the PSC before I came to the city.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I'm learning all kinds of things on Gale Unscripted today. I did not know that. Yes. That's fantastic. All right, Tyler.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

All right, well, hello everybody. Tyler Gwyn. I'm the Executive Director of Human Resources at Cherokee County Schools. I also serve as the president-elect for GASPA, and Stephanie is being very modest. We do have a very strong board, but only because of her leadership. And I also would be remiss without mentioning our president that could not be with us uh here today, Melissa Shepard. We miss you. She is a fantastic leader as well.

HR At Scale In School Districts

SPEAKER_01 2:21

That's right. And Tyler, approximately how many employees does Cherokee County have?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

We have a little under 7,000 employees in Cherokee.

New Realities: AI And Deepfakes

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Wow. So for those of you watching, I know we've got members uh of all different shapes and sizes, but I think as soon as you hear that number out of Tyler's mouth, you you instantly get a new level of respect uh of what he's having to do everywhere. Or sympathy. Or sympathy. Uh there's a lot of changes in HR. You know, a lot of things, uh a lot of new changes have occurred over the years. Why don't we talk about some of those things that HR professionals are having to deal with that maybe they didn't have to deal with 10, 15 years ago?

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Definitely a lot uh comes up now that um I had the privilege of not having to deal with. Tyler and I discussed briefly uh today was an example uh with AI. And we've had a lot of AI presentations in our conferences, and whether it's ethical use of AI or how students use it, how employees use it. But um uh a fear that I had, Tyler informed me, has already come true, but not in Georgia. In another state, the employee created a fake video with their boss's voice that where they were saying inappropriate things, things that would get somebody terminated.

unknown 3:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

And you know, from an HR perspective, we have to conduct investigations. So we're gonna need new skills that we don't necessarily have now to be able to uncover when things are um fabricated like that.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

That's a great example. As an old high school principal, I can only imagine if my students would have had access to AI with something like that, creating uh, you know, the last time I was a principal, you know, they were making the fake Instagrams, uh, but that was about the extent of it. And I had not even thought about that. So that's a fantastic example. What are some other changes in HR?

Don’t Go It Alone: GASPA Network

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Well, i if I could add to that a little bit, um, you know, we knew when AI came around that this was going to come from the students to the teachers and to the staff. I don't think we really anticipated that it would be a certified professional utilizing this technology to target and go after their administration. So it's it's it's kind of a scary time uh in that sense, and Stephanie's right. Um I think one of the main messages we have today to brand new HR professionals is that you don't have to go through this this new changing environment and this new quickly changing world uh of HR by yourself. Um we have each other's back, we have your back, and that's what Gale is all about, that's what GASPA is all about. The networking opportunity is incredible, and some of us, including me, uh our my career has been deeply impacted and positively so because of the network in GASPA. Um, but beyond that, it's the resources, it's the uh it's the knowledge, it's the expertise somewhere, somehow, that has dealt with this situation, uh, which is the true benefit of this organization.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, I think HR is just so wide in all the responsibilities that you all have dealing with a large, vast number of employees. I think it's important for those people to know, whether they're they've been practicing HR professionals or they're brand new, and there's so many more that are coming that are brand new, that no one expects them to be the expert. I can remember I got a phone call probably a year ago, and the it was a new HR professional, and they said, uh, we we're gonna redo our employee handbook and start from scratch. And all I could think of was that sounds like a lot of unnecessary work. I said, Why don't you call? And I gave them some names, some names of people in GASPA. And I said, Because there's already great solid employee handbooks that have been vetted and verified and cover everything legally that you can think of, and use that as a starting point instead of starting from scratch. Why don't you talk about some of the things you can offer to HR professionals out there, especially those new HR directors?

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Sure, we have um two conferences a year, and um our fall conference is coming up in November, and at that event we do focus on um new HR professionals and provide an HR 101 series because it is, you know, of course, the beginning of a school year and we know that's when new people will be coming in. But at the same time, we also provide content for experienced um HR members. Um, additionally, we have um resources that are available all of the time. For example, we have Gaspagaggle, and that's basically an opportunity to uh post your HR-related question, and then other members of the group will respond. And so you might do a simple poll of when are you issuing your contracts, or you might say, I've got this situation with uh paid parental leave, which is a relatively new benefit in Georgia, and you need some expert advice, but our members are great about responding, and we'll give you examples, job descriptions, policies, whatever it is that you're looking for. Um it's a a great benefit for our members. Um besides that, we also have monthly um webinars where we may have a speaker who speaks on a timely topic based on the time of year, like uh CPI contracts, uh recruitment, or it may be a hundred percent open discussion where you can bring your burning questions that you need answered right now. And it's um, you know, once a month we have that opportunity, and I think it's been a great benefit to our membership.

Navigating Social Media Crises

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah, that's great. Go ahead, Ted. And uh last month specifically, um, we've all been kind of dealing and reeling from um just this the changing social dynamics, and um there's been some critical things that have happened in the uh in the recent past, and so we were all kind of expecting and dealing with some of us more than others, the social media ramifications from that. And so, um, and if you haven't dealt with that before, social media is a tough one, and it's kind of a gray area, and many attorneys don't like to uh go there. And this one was of a national, international um incident, and so um again, the main message is you don't have to uh make these decisions um on an island. Um we can do this together, and so the last meeting we had, we threw that topic out there and we just went at it in uh in a very open, honest, and transparent way, and I think a lot of people learn something.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Yeah, I think that's great. I think that's one thing Gaspa does so well. You take care of each other and you give them opportunities to learn, whether it's in the gaggle or the monthly webinar or at your conference. Uh I've even heard some of your members as as new HR directors say, you know, we didn't have examples in our district of letters of concern or oral written and counseling documents. Um and they could reach out to your organization or your members, and they were able to get samples of that. Uh I heard one HR person say, you know, we've never had an issue where there was a weapon on campus. So we had no idea of what kind of letter to home to our parents, but I made one call to the board member of GASPA for our area of the state, and I got a sample letter just like that. So talk about that a little bit, how important that is for those new members to to have that kind of access.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

It it is very important, and um just personally, I my first GASPA uh conference was in December of 1996. I was the youngest person there by far. But um I always felt throughout my entire career that if I wanted to know what was going on, I needed to be at um the GASPA conferences because that is where you can network and m meet the people who have similar responsibilities. It's where you become informed by um the legal advisors, um, DOE, TRS, Professional Standards Commission. You know, everyone is there um with the information that that group needs.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, that's a great example. I've seen your members grabbing, whether it's Dr. Jody Barrow from PSC, and hey, I've got this situation and able to get some one-on-one, face-to-face information, um things like that. I've seen them grab uh the TRS members there if they've got questions about payrolls things. So I think that's very important that y'all do that. That's the access they can have at your conferences.

Who Should Attend GASPA Conferences

SPEAKER_00 11:37

I I think I would add too that you know HR is just too big. Um I've been in human resources for 11 years, and uh you just can't know it all, and it changes too fast and too quickly. The policies are changing, the legislation is changing all the time. And so um you really need this twice a year to come together to kind of focus on the hot topics and figure out what we're supposed to do to move forward. You do you can't know it all. You will never ever know all of it.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

And you need a network, you need a network of colleagues that you can pick up the phone. Uh sometimes I think it's such a huge benefit for our small districts to be rubbing elbows with their colleagues at larger districts because they're able to specialize. They've got people at some school districts that only specialize in investigations. Where if I'm the the only HR professional in my small district, I may not have had experience in an investigation of this particular subject. And I think that's very important to have that access to your members. Well, talk to me a little bit about these conferences. You do one in the fall, one in the spring.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Well, of course, that is the main content that we are going to cover, but we have members that are superintendents, we have members that are I've seen principals. Uh principals, we have um people in finance that like to participate.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

So I've even seen a curriculum person or two there before.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Yeah, it it's really a lot of um information that we provide applies to all areas of leadership. And uh it never hurts someone who's going to be a principal or superintendent to understand HR issues because you'll be more effective in your role with that background too.

AI Policies And Upcoming Sessions

SPEAKER_01 13:24

That's right. I would say to any of our Gill members out there, maybe you're an assistant principal. Uh maybe you're thinking, well, I I really don't need to know about HR. When you become a principal, you are going to work lockstep with your human resources department. And if you end up being at the district office later in your career or a superintendent, that's when you really figure out how important the HR department is for your district.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

As HR director, my main customers were always the principals.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

That's right. So very, very important. You you mentioned social media, uh, how how sometimes that can be a difficult uh topic and subject. We did have an event early this fall, and I know a lot of school districts had to deal with employees on both sides of the of the issue, uh, posting things, and I think it's great that your organization is proactive in that, and you spent an entire uh webinar session just talking about that because what we do know is it won't be the last divisive event that happens in our country, whether it's uh locally or state or in the the nation, and it's important for our HR professionals to be prepared for that and know how to address it. Um what about AI policies? Is that something that uh you're hearing a lot from some of your professionals around the state? Because I know a lot of school districts now are getting into that. I know GSBA is talking about that with boards of education. Um are y'all talking about that? And maybe tell us what some of the upcoming topics are for your future conferences.

Employee Mental Health Supports

SPEAKER_02 15:03

So, yes, we are talk talking about that. Some school systems this school year added AI positions in their in their schools or in their system. Um, but we do have four different AI presentations on our agenda for um the November conference. Um, one of them is from the Professional Standards Commission, and they have written ethical guidelines on the use of AI. And so we're very interested in hearing um what they have to share. I know they had um a committee that was led by one of the other individuals that is going to be a keynote presenter, an attorney from um New York that uh participated and helped them develop. He's an expert in that field because he has the legal background and educational background and the technology knowledge. So um we've brought him in also. And then um you'll have to forgive me because I've forgotten the uh that's why we call it Neil Inscripted, Steven. This is perfect.

Retention Through Behavior Insights

SPEAKER_01 16:16

They will know it is unscripted. Yeah, but AI is a hot topic across the country, and not just from a board policy, you know, there everyone's worried about what are the students using it for. Um I know that there's a lot of potential to use some AI to help them when it comes to things like uh walkthroughs and evaluations, but they need to make sure they're staying abreast of the most up-to-date legal ramifications by coming to your conferences where you're gonna have Phil Hartley or Corey there to talk about those to make sure that back home in their district they're doing everything exactly right. Yeah. Well, uh, I know mental health has been a big issue in the legislature, especially about students for obvious reasons, but it's also important when it comes to our employees. So, what is your organization hearing from some of your members about the mental health of employees and what are some things maybe they're doing to try to be proactive around that?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

I know that um there have been some grants available and some positions that have been added and with a focus on mental health. And like you said, Ben, a lot of times um in the past our focus has been on student mental health, but employee mental health is uh important too. And we do have some benefits through our um state health insurance, so um that's we're fortunate that that's always available, but um most school systems are going to offer an employee assistance program where um those types of resources are are available, whether it's um whatever type of counseling uh might be needed.

Proactive Supports To Prevent Missteps

SPEAKER_01 18:06

It could be everything from drug counseling for a family member, alcoholism, grief, uh divorce, there's just all kinds of things. I think it's so important. I think what HR departments and benefits departments deal with roughly 85 to 88 percent of the budget for local school districts. And you have such a tremendous responsibility of taking care of the employees so that they can take care of the students. And so, Tyler, why don't you talk to us? You're you're practicing uh executive director in HR, you're working in a large school district. Um teacher retention and recruitment is such a hot topic. What are some things you're seeing some school districts do around the state that maybe are a little unique or outside of the box because they're all competing right now? I know it's everything from supplemental benefits packages to 403Bs, are we a social security system or not? But what are some things that maybe you've heard from some of your colleagues that they're doing around the state to recruit teachers and keep them?

Event Details And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Yeah, I it's a critical question, always has been and always will be. And so um how your system is recruiting and focusing on retention, I think, is um if you haven't gone there or started there, I think it's probably past time uh a little bit. But you're right, we we are in competition, so I'm not about to reveal all the things that we're doing. Um, but one thing I did want to tie in to kind of the last conversation with this one is that you know student behavior changed when we came back from COVID. And um, you know, I'm hearing from colleagues from all over the place that that behavior is can has consistently changed. It is different, it is more extreme, but we're also seeing that in our personnel. And so adult behavior changed as well. And so, what we're trying to do is as we are holding people accountable and as we are supporting them and growing them, taking we're we're doing a deep dive and looking into the data of what age group uh of employee is is demonstrating that kind of behavior or making those decisions. Are there any trends there? We're looking very carefully at um job families. Um is it our special ed teachers that are dealing with the extreme behavior, or is it our gen ed teachers, or is it kind of a combo? So we are really trying to determine the cause of the behavior and really deal with that piece in addition to holding that employee accountable and offering them the support that they need. I think that in and of itself is going to add to retention. And what I mean by that is it is very simple to say, employee A, this happened and therefore this is the consequence. You're terminated. Or we can do a deep dive and try to understand, okay, there's extreme behaviors, it's almost like a cause and effect analysis here. There's extreme behavior by students, there's a possibly an extreme response by an adult, but is that response almost somewhat reasonable or or there might be something else to it than just termination? And so we're trying to understand and offer supports. So, one thing I'll just throw out there. We we talk about the code of ethics a lot where with our teachers. We are proactively retraining all of our staff on the code of ethics. But one thing we're talking about is when the students are exhibiting extreme behavior, our response is everything that matters. That changes everything. It it it shifts the focus of your career sometimes. And so we are trying to work with schools to implement um, you know, when that happens, what should the teacher do? What kind of support do they immediately have? Can we get them out of that environment and let them kind of cool down, calm down, and move on and have somebody else step into that role before there's a bad decision that happens that that moves into separation? So that that's different than most people that talk about retention and giving swag bags and having celebrations. But uh I think this is more strategic and more intentional. We're trying to understand our student behavior more and our adult response to that behavior more.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Yeah, that's great. I think it's important that you're being proactive in Cherokee County. You're you're understanding that those employees are such a valuable resource that you're trying to figure out how to stop problems from from happening. And you're looking at the data to actually see are there some trends so that we can be proactive to dealing with a certain population, whatever that might be. It's fantastic. Well, this has been a fantastic episode. We really appreciate you coming. Don't forget you got two conferences for GASPA. One's in the fall, in November of each year. Uh, and it is held in St. Simon's, so you can leave the game after spending the night on Saturday, Sunday, you can go straight up to St. Simon's for the fall conference. Uh, and then you have it in the spring in May, uh, which is right before the incredibly hectic season of HR. I don't know. Is HR ever not incredibly hectic? Not anymore. When's your slow time? If you said this month is our best month, is it does it ever just doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Doesn't exist. Probably December, because there's only two weeks. Okay. There's two weeks. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

But do you hold your breath over the Christmas break about it? Always. Yeah, that's right. Uh but anyway, and remember, if you're out there, you can go to their conference, even if you're a principal or a superintendent or district office, you want to learn more about it. Uh make sure if you're a superintendent watching this, is your HR professional a member of GASPA, number one, is what I'd say. Are they attending the conferences? Do they know about the gaggle? Uh if not, they can reach out to Tyler or Stephanie and they can make sure they get access to that and to the webinar. It's a monthly webinar. It is a fantastic professional learning environment. Uh the networking is second to none, and I just can't stress enough how important it is for your HOR professional to be a part of Gaspo. Thank you both for joining us today. And thank all of you for joining us for another episode of Gail Unscript.