Running Your Communication Offense & Defense

April 28, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Picture showing offense and defenseThe best PR tip I can offer in the midst of COVID-19 (or any crisis, for that matter) is that you should be running an offense and defense at the same time.

This can be a challenge to do, if you’re a one person PR team (or administrator wearing multiple hats, including PR). So, if you haven’t already put together a communication and PR team, start now.

However, it is incredibly important to not only manage the current reality, but also to paint a picture of the future.

I read a great recent article on PR Daily that I’m going to summarize here, and put into context for education organizations, particularly during COVID-19 school closures and re-openings.

Your Defense Team

Your “defense team” includes those managing the current crisis. This team should be comprised of the most resilient—those who are quick to take action, are the voice of calm and reason, and who survey the current landscape and adhere to the facts as they manage the crisis.

In a school district your defense team should include someone from HR (familiar or involved with current negotiations), an instructional administrator (like an Assistant Superintendent for Instruction/Curriculum), and a student welfare/social emotional health administrator.

Your Offensive Team

Your offensive team looks to the future and is not involved in the current crisis. Those best suited for this team are curious and self-starters—they veer away from comfort zones, are competitive and strategic, and can see at least six months down the road.  This could be your CBO, facilities director, health officer/administrator, and a principal rep for each level in your district (elementary, middle, high school).

You, as the communication leader, will work with both teams and manage the strategic direction and progress, and your superintendent will also be involved with working with both teams, as they set the direction for the district as a whole.

Both teams should be providing talking points to your Board of Education and coaching your board members on resisting the urge to post articles or opinions that may cause confusion about the district’s messaging or plans.

Keeping an Eye on Your Future

While your stakeholders are living in the present, they are also shaping their opinions about the future.  While yes, parents are focused on what grading options are available and how Class of 2020 graduates will be honored during  shelter in place, they are also creating some very strong opinions about distance education–not just the delivery, but also the quality.  Parents and staff members are also concerned about schedules and safety when schools re-open.

  • Communicate about your district’s commitment to providing a high quality educational experience and your district’s values: Parents have choices, and there are many online education programs that may be delivering distance education in a higher quality format and approach than what is being offered by their school district. With the prospect of distance education being some part of a hybrid educational approach in the 2020-21 school year, it is imperative that you are reinforcing parents’ confidence in your schools by letting them know how you are planning on ensuring that students are receiving a high quality education and what that will look like in 2020-21.
  • Communicate about what discussions are in progress about the upcoming school year: Silence is not golden in the world of communications.  Silence opens up too many opportunities for other people to fill in the blanks.  Provide your stakeholders some information about the conversations you’re currently having about next year’s re-opening plans, what assumptions will be made, and your district’s priority on the health and safety of students and staff.
  • Show empathy: Acknowledge that you understand that parents and staff desire to have concrete answers so that they can plan ahead, and show gratitude for their patience. Let them know that the upcoming school year will be different for everyone, and that the district is planning for providing more emotional/social supports for students and staff in navigating the changes ahead.

Every great team has a strong offense and defense running parallel, and in school districts, you can develop two strong communication teams that can effectively manage the current needs while also keeping an eye on the ball, so that you can have a winning approach to keeping your district’s reputation and relationships strong and intact.

Need help developing your winning team?

As an integrated partner and strategic advisor, Sounding Board Marketing & Communications can come alongside you in developing your communication team and providing strategic advising to implement successful communication approaches. Give us a call at 916.673.8868 or hvmcgowan@sounding-board.net

 

How to Get Your Key Messages on Track

April 27, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Key-messagesFrom watching the news this past week, one of the things that is standing out most to me is the importance of key messaging, and sticking to the message.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just take a look at the presidential press conferences from last week and the ensuing confusion and caution in their wake.

Myth: It’s not important to spend time developing key messages—people are going to say what they want anyway.

Fact: Key messages are imperative in the planning process, so that they can be interwoven into every communication message, talking points, etc. to ensure consistency of messaging so that your messages stick!

Here’s the thing–just because people naturally communicate does not make them communication experts.  If people are left to their own devices in developing key messages on their own, their responses will vary, resulting in confusion, lack of clarity and zero consistency in messaging.  The end result is confused stakeholders whose trust will be diminished due to lack of consistent messaging from your organization.

Key messages can be 1-2 sentences long, and you should identify three truthful key messages that will be used throughout your campaign, process, crisis or situation management.  These are not taglines—they are what you want people to remember throughout the process.  And avoid education-ese, jargon or internal terminology/acronyms.  They need to be concise, active, positive, short, and specific.

Key messages answer the “What should we be saying to our stakeholders?” question during a strategic communication process, which can be a short or long term approach to communicating about an issue, program/school, during a crisis or situation.  In other words–all of your communications should be strategic.

How do you decide on your key messages?   Your key messages are the three things you want all of your stakeholders to remember throughout the process–everything else you say and do will support this. They answer the “Why?” and “How?” questions. Here are some examples, based on a school consolidation communication plan I developed for a school district client:

  • School consolidation will help {District’s name} schools stay strong by closing a $12 million budget shortfall and addressing declines in school enrollment. In doing so, we can ensure that our schools maintain the level of excellence that our families expect for our students and support innovative learning in the classroom so that our students are prepared for a highly competitive global society.
  • The District will be working closely with the community throughout the school consolidation process. We will provide our families opportunities for input during the process, including community information sessions.
  • The decision to consolidate schools comes after several years of studying and assessing our district’s finances, facilities, enrollment and impacts to our entire district community.

Who should have these key messages? Again, your key messages should be interwoven throughout all of your communications to your stakeholders–your talking points, FAQs, website content, used in media interviews, etc.  Ensure that your district cabinet, board and other key communicators not only have these key messages, but compel them to use them in their communications.

Who should develop the key messages? Collaborate as a team with your Cabinet members to develop the key messages–having multiple perspectives will strengthen the clarity of your messaging and ensure they’re on target.

Need help developing key messages?  

We’re here to help. Give us a call at 916.673.8868 or hvmcgowan@sounding-board.net.

Celebrating Earth Day-Even During Distance Education

April 22, 2020 by Leave a Comment

50th Earth Day Logo“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
-John Muir

As a child, I have fond memories of camping and taking nature walks, and remember so many lessons I learned from my mother on those walks (Who can’t forget the “leaves of three, don’t touch me” rhyme to remember how to identify poison oak?).  My husband (a biology teacher) and I continue to enjoy the outdoors with our children, and spend most of our sunny days together in hikes and walks. For me, being outdoors, enjoying the quiet sounds of nature, is the ultimate re-set button.

With the initial introduction of online learning, one thing that is concerning a lot of parents is the amount of time that their children need to spend learning online. Earth Day is an incredible day for educators to promote outdoor education, and especially during these stay at home times, this is a great way to encourage students to get outdoors and engage in applied learning.

And, it happens to be the 50th anniversary of the Earth Day celebration! How can you encourage and promote all of this beautiful and positive outdoor learning?  Here are a few ideas:

Earth Day Challenge

Source: Earth Day Network

  • Earth Day 2020 social media campaign: Ask parents, teachers, and staff to post pictures/videos of them engaging in Earth Day activities using a unique Earth Day 2020 hashtag for your school/district.  Collect those pictures to curate into a post summarizing the ways your schools celebrated Earth Day.
  • Promote Earth Day educational activities: Everything from NASA to the National Geographic Kids to EarthDay.org and environmentally-conscious companies have activities for children to do on Earth Day.  Promote these via email and social media communications.
  • Earth Day Challenge: Ask students to draw or video how they plan to #bendthecurve on consumption, waste and pollution on engaging in daily activities (see image to the right). Post and share these photos and videos on social media throughout the week.

And, for you, as a busy superintendent, principal, communication director, or other professional, remember to get out, take a walk, and take deep breaths in nature. These are stressful times, and taking a break to reconnect with nature will do more wonders than an extra hour working ever will.

If you need a partner in your organization’s communication, or if you just want a listening ear (or sounding board!), I’m happy to help. Click here to schedule a free 30 minute consultation.

 

How To Streamline Internal Communication–Starting Today

April 20, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Email InboxThis past weekend, I spent a couple of hours talking with new teachers during a Communication Confidence Boosters workshop and “Throw Your Communication Challenges At Me” Q&A session.

First, I was absolutely floored by the number of teachers participating in their own professional development after what was likely the first week of launching distance education for many of them.  They are true rockstars!

Next, when one teacher asked how she could organize and prioritize the “hundreds of district emails” in her in-box—and the affirmation of the other teachers who related—I realized that internal communication in a lot of organizations is likely looking like my personal email in-box: like a bunch of people yelling at me telling me that their message is important.

Although I gave this teacher some advice on how to filter and organize her in box so that she could at least see parent emails first—and then create priorities and timelines around when she could check the other emails—the truth is, your internal audiences should not need to spend hours setting up email filters and in box folders to organize and prioritize your messages.  That’s a late 1990’s/early 2000’s thing. Don’t get me wrong–organizing your email inbox is a must, however, with your internal communications,  your organization should be doing this through integrated, organized, strategic and concise messaging.

Remember what I’ve said before? More communication is not better. More communication means that you’re making your audience choose what they want to read and open.

Better communication filters out the noise and hones in on the most important messages. More communication means that you’re asking audience members to read to wordy messages, long videos and poorly messaged content to determine whether what they read and saw was important, or if it was just a “fluffy message filler.”

Better communication puts the information succinctly in one place, and prioritizes the messaging. 

So how can you accomplish this?  Simply–put the information in one spot for the employee.  And keep messages brief and to-the-point.  Here are a few suggestions:

Employee Newsletter

An employee newsletter is a great way to put all the information you need to send to employees in one place.

  • Frequency: Aim to send the newsletter 1-2 times a week.
  • Length: Your newsletter should be no longer than 1-1.5 printed pages.  The key is to hone in on key information.  Provide links to more detailed information on your website, where necessary, but not in every single story.
  • Format: NOT a pdf download.  If you make people open an email, then download a pdf to read your newsletter, you’ve lost at least 50% of your audience. There are several online email programs that provide easy-to-use, attractive formats.  Constant Contact and MailChimp are a couple of popular email programs.  And, depending on the number of email address in your organization, you may even be able to use their free versions. These programs also allow you to look at open rates, and link click through rates, which is a wonderful way to track how many of your emails are being opened and which links people are clicking on for more information.
  • Include a couple of pictures (not clip art, but pictures of real employees, or from school sites) where relevant.
  • Because of the frequency, it’s key to ensure that the information is timely, and to organize information around the timing of the newsletter’s delivery.
Employee Intranet

Over the past few years, there has been a small rise in the use of employee intranets (closed internal communications network), though the use of Google Drive has also served this need.

  • Pros: It’s streamlined. An employee intranet gives your employees one place to access shared drives and information.  You can post important employee-only calendar events (versus posting them on your public-facing events calendar), reminders that can be integrated with email, and notifications.  Many organizations have multiple ways that employees must obtain this information, and anything that requires an employee to log in to multiple platforms to obtain information basically reduces the chance that the employee will log in and see that information.  So, if you want success with your employee interfaces, then look at one place they need to log in.
  • Cons: They can be costly and somewhat time consuming to set up.  However, the employee time saved and the opportunity to ensure that they are seeing and sharing your messages is worth the up front costs. Here’s a link to a great article that outlines Employee Intranet: 40 Reasons Why Every Business Needs One.
Employee Texts

If you have employees who do not regularly use email, but do have an employer-issued phone, consider sending brief texts intended just for those employees.  Obviously, they don’t need all the tech-related updates relevant to distance education, but they still need to be kept in the loop.

Employee Phone Messages

You may have some employees who are not working right now who usually receive information via district mail or on a bulletin board.  It’s important to keep them engaged and informed about important matters.  Utilize your organization’s phone messaging program (if you have one) or ask directors and managers to reach out to these employees individually to provide them the latest updates (and to check in on them if they’re personally calling each employee).

Need help setting up strategic and streamlined internal communications, or need some advice on how to do so?  Give us a call at 916.673.8868 or send us an email.  We’ll get you up and going within the day on an email communication, employee phone messages and texts, or can refer you to great employee intranet vendors.

 

Virtual Class of 2020 Celebration

April 14, 2020 by Leave a Comment

One of the first realizations that sprung from the stay at home orders—beyond needing to buy more toilet paper—was the cancellation of the end of the year celebrations for graduating seniors. Grad walks, senior breakfasts, prom, Grad Night and of course, graduation.  These celebrations are rituals that provide for a joyful closure of thirteen years of culminating educational experiences, and final shared experiences of the senior class.Schools and school districts have been seeking ways to replace these in person experiences, delay graduation ceremonies, and still celebrate their seniors in safely distanced ways.

First, if you haven’t already, reassure your community that you are considering alternative celebrations.  (Tip: Before they start their own online petitions, crowdsource your audiences’ ideas through a survey or crowdsourcing platform like ThoughtExchange.)

Next, thanks to social media, schools and districts can hold a virtual celebration of these seniors in a number of different ways by crowdsourcing content.  As a way to congratulate and honor them, I’ve included a couple of social media post examples of real Class of 2020 seniors, below, as well.

Here are six ideas that you can begin right away!  

  • Instagram Stories: Ask seniors to send a 15 second (or less) video to use in an Instagram story.
  • Online Sourcing: Ask parents or seniors to post a their senior photo, senior door decorating and their son’s/daughter’s post-high school plans on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram using a #{School Name}Classof2020 hashtag—and let them know that you’re cultivating these photos and information for a future social media post.
  • Senior Shout Out: Create a simple online form where parents can upload their senior’s picture, name, plans after graduation. From this information, create simple shout out posts for each senior with a common graphic.  Canva is a great platform with free options where you can create these graphics and resize them for each social media platform.

Class of 2020 social media celebration
CLASS OF 2020-Senior Shout Out

 

  • Diaper Ads, Re-imagined: Many yearbooks feature “diaper ads” which allow parents of seniors to submit baby/tot pictures of their graduating senior along with their senior picture, along with a brief note.  Why not create these into social media posts?  Using the online submission form approach, ask parents to submit these photos and their note to their senior, and use these to recognize seniors—they’ll get a good laugh, and probably lots of engagement.

 

CLASS OF 2020-Diaper Ad and celebration

 

 

  • Grad Thank Yous—On Video: In our town, our graduating seniors don their caps and gowns and visit their elementary schools to tell their teachers thank you, while the elementary school students look on and see what the future looks like for them.  Why not do it in a video?  Ask seniors to submit a “Thank You” video in which they’re wearing their cap and gown and thank their favorite teachers (and name the school).  Keep the time limited to 15 seconds so you can use them on Instagram stories (where most seniors are) and on Facebook (where most of your teachers are).  Put the videos together in a longer video that can be posted on your district/school’s website and emailed to staff (since all may not be on social media).
  • Grad Drive By Parade: Similar to the teacher drive by parades happening in towns across America, consider a Grad “Drive By Parade”. Seniors can wear their caps and gowns, and hold a sign with a “Thank you” to their teachers (and include their names), and ride in a car parade in their elementary school neighborhood or on a common route to their high school.  Coordination with local law enforcement might be necessary to ensure that they know when the parade will happen and on which streets, and remember to encourage people to wave from their own driveways to ensure appropriate social distancing. Make sure that someone is videoing and taking pictures of the parade so that it can be shared later on social media and on your website.

And, these ideas don’t only have to apply to graduating seniors! You can take a similar approach with your Class of 2020 8th grade, 5/6th grade and even kindergarteners that are celebrated in end-of-year promotion activities.

Need help with setting up your virtual celebrations?  Sounding Board has helped many schools and school district clients successfully manage social media, website and other content virtually and through crowdsourcing content in the ways listed above. Give us a call at 916.673.8868 or email us at hvmcgowan@sounding-board.net.

 

Before you Send That Email, Tweet, Record That Message…

March 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Person plugging their earsCrises are incredible opportunities to use communication to strengthen relationships with stakeholders.  In the midst of COVID-19 and the drastic changes to the educational landscape, I’ve been watching my fellow California School Public Relations Association and National School Public Relations colleagues rise to the challenge to inform parents, staff and the public about school closures, free meals, distance learning, mental health tips and resources, community resources, and ways that their staff are going above and beyond the call of duty.  And, in some cases, superintendents and support staff are being thrown into implementing crisis and ongoing communications tactics in ways they never have before.

They’re also competing with an onslaught of communications from businesses and other organizations that are also communicating what they are doing to keep customers safe, business and product delivery options, and well-meaning free approaches to keep children, teens and adults entertained, in good health and more.

It’s enough to saturate any audience member.  This also creates the real and huge risk of audience members tuning and checking out, scanning information quickly, and missing the important details.

Now, more than ever, it’s imperative for communicators to lead their organizations in strategic communication planning and implementation.  This process is a cycle of the four step PR process: Research, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation.

More communication is not better.  More tactics won’t help you reach your audience members. Targeted, strategic, well-messaged communications and tactics are what will allow you to be effective in reaching your audiences, and continue to increase and retain audience trust, and ensure your audience members are doing what you want them to do.

Because I will assume that you have already implemented your communications tactics, we’re going to begin with Evaluation, which is the fourth step in the 4-Step PR process.  Typically, you’ll start with Research.

Step 1: Evaluation

I know it seems odd to start with the final step of the 4-Step PR process, but as I previously mentioned, this is a cycle. Most likely, you’ve already implemented the first three steps, but you probably haven’t had an opportunity to come up for air and evaluate. Evaluation is answering the questions “How have we been successful?” “How can we do better?” and “What do we need to adjust moving forward?”

Here are a couple of examples of what to evaluate: 

  • Environmental Scan: Evaluate where your organization is in this crisis.  Most likely, your schools have been closed for at least one week, and distance learning plans are in place, and possibly implemented. Ask yourself whether daily (or twice daily) communications are still necessary, or if you can reduce communications to 2-3 days per week.
  • Engagement, Click Throughs/Opens, Phone Message Logs: Review your social media engagement, email click throughs and open rates, and phone message logs.  What patterns do you see? Are you seeing a dip in email open rates and click throughs later in the week?  What questions are being asked on social media?  Are your videos being viewed? What kinds of comments are being made?  Take note of what seems to be engaging people the most, what questions need to be answered in FAQs, and other data that will help inform your future communications.  Also, anecdotal feedback from audience members can be incredibly valuable.

Step 2: Research

Research essentially defines the problem. From the evaluation process, what problems have you uncovered?

  • Who do you want to REACH? Are you reaching your audiences effectively, or are there holes?
  • What do you want them to DO? Are your audiences acting/reacting in the intended ways from your previous communications, or do you need to provide clarification and/or other communication avenues (i.e. Setting up separate Facebook or Twitter profiles for answering IT questions from parents, staff)
  • What messages do you want to communicate to each public that will encourage desired behavior, increase knowledge and change attitudes? Review your previous messages—are they working, do they need to be tweaked?

Step 3: Planning

The Universal Accreditation Board outlines a 10-step PR plan (which I also use with my clients) that will work for any situation.

  1. Goals: This is a state of being that you want to accomplish through your communications. Example: “For every audience ABC School District audience member to clearly understand what they should be doing during COVID-19 school closures and how the District will support and serve as a resource for families and employees.”
  2. Target Audiences or Publics:
    • Who needs to know or understand?
    • Whose advice or support do we need?
    • Who will be affected?
  3. Objectives for Those Audiences:
    • Objectives are shorter term.
    • Define what behavior, attitude or opinion you want to achieve from specific audiences, how much to achieve and when.
    • Think in terms of the awareness, attitude or action you desire – the end result.
  4. Strategies
    • The road map or approach to reach objectives.
    • Do not indicate specific actions.
    • Use verbs such as demonstrate, collaborate, etc.
  5. Tactics: These are the specific activities conducted to implement strategies of a program.
    • How you will use your resources to carry out your strategy and work toward your objectives.
    • Examples: Meetings, publications, news releases, websites, billboards.
  6. Activities: Specific activities required under your tactics to carry out strategies.
    • Informal plans often jump from objectives to activities.
    • Vehicles or channels you will use to communicate are listed here.
  7. Evaluation
    • How will you know if you are reaching your objectives?
    • Measurement? Observation? Opinion? Feedback?
  8. Materials: What do you need to implement/execute your tactics?
  9. Budget:ƒ Out-of-pocket costs, staff time, volunteer energy, transportation, images, materials, fabrication, etc.
  10. Timetable and Task List
    • What does what and when?
    • Work backward from deadline or forward from start date

STEP 4: Implementation

Implementation involves actual messages sent through the communication channels and tools you will be using, and includes monitoring tools for execution. And then, once you have implemented your plan, then you will come back to evaluation.

Remember, this is a process and a cycle. But it is effective, and it works.

If you haven’t implemented this approach previously, it will likely feel cumbersome to go through these steps, particularly if you are already feeling overwhelmed.  However, this will become like second nature once you’ve gone through the process.  You will likely uncover ways to be more efficient and effective in your work, as well.

Have questions? Need clarification?

I’m always happy to hop onto a call to help answer questions and guide you through the steps.  Feel free to contact me at 916.673.8868 or hvmcgowan@sounding-board.net. We’re in this together and we’ll get through this together.

 

 

 

A Special Note About Being Open for Business

March 23, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Open for business signWhen I opened Sounding Board Marketing & Communications 10 years ago, I always intended for my business to provide mostly virtual services to my clients.  During this time of school closures, I’m still providing the same, strategic and creative services for my clients so that they can stay connected with their district’s families–employees and parents–through all of their communication platforms. As a parent of three and wife of a his teacher, I am on the receiving end of the messaging being sent by my children’s school district and I’m on the observing end watching my husband find ways to connect with his students.

Whether you need content development for messaging, a roadmap for communications for the next few weeks, or ideas for keeping schools and teachers connected with families, I’m here to help.  As always, my mission has always been to help educators strengthen their relationships with their stakeholders, and never before has this been more important.

Feel free to send me an email at hvmcgowan@sounding-board.net or give me a call at 916.673.8868 if you want to talk through your communications, or if you need a sounding board for ideas you’re already considering.  I’m here when you need me.

All the best,

Heather

#BetterTogether: High and Low Tech Ways to Stay Connected With Students, Families

March 18, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Fellow educators—well, we’ve certainly had a fun couple of weeks, right?  It’s an understatement to say that the coronavirus (COVD19) has rocked our worlds.

Virtual High FiveWhile you’re still in the midst of determining how your schools can continue to deliver education to your students, staying tuned for more emerging details (including how long your schools will need to remain closed, whether standardized testing will proceed, etc.), and feeding your most needy students, there is something that will remain constant: your relationships with your students.

First, while parents are in the process of learning how to home school their children, as educators, you are likely grappling with a number of emotions, and the first is probably missing your students.  While scheduled school breaks offer a needed reprieve from work duties, and leave you feeling energized when you return to the classroom, this unexpected (and undetermined) break has likely filled you with some anxiety, possibly some depression, mourning, and has also taken away a huge part of your daily purpose. All of these feelings can sap creativity and drive, and my hope is that the ideas I’m offering in this post will help inspire you and bring a little spring back in your step.  Whether you’re a school principal or a teacher, your relationships with your students is what is at the core of why they succeed, why they want to be lifelong learners, and why you’re an amazing educator.

How do you keep relationships with students going when schools are closed?

I’m going to spend the next few weeks curating some of the best ideas that will likely emerge across the nation, but I wanted to share some ideas with you now, in case it may help with your current efforts.  And, because your parents and students have varying access to the internet and computers, I’m offering both high and low tech approaches.

Something to note: A lot of parents have smart phones…they may not have computers or wifi, but in a survey that I did of a high poverty district in California, 95% of the parents had smart phones.  Based on comparing notes with other school communication colleagues, this number is consistent across the state.  So, at the very least, most parents have some kind of access to online technology, but it’s also important to keep in mind the other 5% who do not.

Keep following this page for updates, and check in on my social media pages for more ideas.

Low-tech ways to stay connected with your students

  • Call them!  A personal telephone call is a great way for your students to get a personal touch from you, and for them to hear your voice.  It’s also a great way to check in with parents to find out if they have access to computers and wifi to determine ongoing tech needs.  If you’re comfortable, ask your students to give you a call, if they need to talk.  You may have some students who are in home or life situations who found school to be a necessary escape, and may need to have that check-in with you. Also use this as an opportunity to remind students and parents about community and district services that are available to provide food, health and other services.
  • Write them a letter: As long as mail delivery continues, writing your students a letter will be a wonderful, unexpected surprise in their mail box.  Check in with your school site or district regarding mailing the letters or getting reimbursed for your personal costs.
  • Email: A weekly/biweekly email to your students and their parents is a great way to stay connected.  Provide them ideas for continued learning and share some fun things you’ve been doing at home.

Hi-tech ways to stay connected with your students

  • Videos: Consider using video to do the things with students that involve you at the front of the classroom—for TK and kindergarteners, this could be your welcome time (weather, counting, letter of the day, etc.) and reading a story, for lower grades, this could be providing directions on art work/a project, reading a story, explaining math concepts, etc.  For middle and high school teachers, this could be some of your facilitated learning approaches and explanation of concepts. PE teachers, this is where you’ll rock: do a virtual dance party, show students how you’re staying active while school is closed, demonstrate the proper way to lift weights…the list goes on.
  • Video chat: For group video conferencing, Skype, Hangouts, Hangouts Meets and Zoom are good free options. Consider scheduling smaller group chats to keep the chat environment manageable. Ask your students to send you pictures, videos so that you can share them out with each group. Here is a list of a number of tech tools that will help with presentations, collaborations and chats: https://techagainstcoronavirus.com/

Community-building

  • Keep traditions going: Spirit weeks can go home with fun approaches that also engage social media—check out this example from Empire Oaks Elementary School’s PTA:

 

Empire Oaks Spirit Week image

  • Celebrations: Do you celebrate your students at school?  Don’t stop celebrating them because they aren’t there. Here are some ideas:
    • Provide parents some ideas of what they can do to celebrate their children-as-students at home.  Citizenship, helping others, and other character traits should continue to be celebrated, and in the trenches of these transitions, parents may need a helpful reminder that their children love being recognized for what they’re doing well.
    • Ask parents to tell you if their child is excelling at something so that you can verbally recognize them when you send a video or do a group chat.  For older students, ask them what they’ve been doing well so they can celebrate together.
    • Taking a page from the summer reading programs, have your students/parents submit a reading log and recognize students who have read for the most number of minutes.  If you have permission to post this online, put together a social media post recognizing your top readers (Canva is an excellent, easy to use, and free program for this).  You could do the same with math and other subjects.
  • Class Stuffed Animal (good for TK, kinder and lower grades): Well, since the class stuffed animal isn’t going home, he or she is probably feeling a little lonely! Ask your students (with mom and dad’s help) to send pictures and videos of themselves with their stuffed animals, or schedule a stuffed animal video chat with a fun story.
  • A note about high school traditions: I’m not ignoring them, as there are so many incredible high school traditions focused on togetherness—proms, grad walks, senior breakfasts—and your students, especially seniors, are likely feeling deep disappointment about the possibility (or reality) that those events will be rescheduled or even cancelled.  If you’re already cooking up ideas on how your school will be approaching this, please provide those ideas in the comment box, and I’ll also add those ideas to this post.

Note to School Districts: Don’t stop celebrating your schools and staff because of school closures.  Ask teachers, staff to send you pictures, videos of what they’re doing and curate those examples into stories about how your district is continuing to educate and keep your school communities connected.

These are just a few ideas, and I’ll continue to collect more.

Please leave some of your favorite ideas in the comment box or on my social media, and I’ll add them to this post!

 

 

Attendance Campaigns: Why Messaging Matters

October 9, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Recently,Attendance Campaign I began the process of strategizing a year-long attendance campaign for a K-6 school district client.  I’ve seen a lot of attendance campaigns over the past 14 years since I first began working in K-12 public relations and communications.  And there has been one common theme: Numbers. “You COUNT!”  “Everyday COUNTS!” “Every student COUNTS!” And then there is often some kind of reference to money for schools and attendance.

But, when you really look at the reasons why students are chronically absent, then you’ll understand why this messaging doesn’t really motivate or resonate students or parents, and in fact…it’s really quite tone deaf.

According to Attendance Works:

“Children living in poverty are two to three times more likely to be chronically absent—and face the most harm because their community lacks the resources to make up for the lost learning in school. Students from communities of color as well as those with disabilities are disproportionately affected. This isn’t simply a matter of truancy or skipping school. In fact, many of these absences, especially among our youngest students, are excused. Often absences are tied to health problems, such as asthma, diabetes, and oral and mental health issues. Other barriers including lack of a nearby school bus, a safe route to school or food insecurity make it difficult to go to school every day.  In many cases, chronic absence goes unnoticed because schools are counting how many students show up every day rather than examining how many and which students miss so much school that they are falling behind.”

So, why do attendance campaigns continue to use “counts” in their messaging?

Communication campaigns around attendance should and can take a comprehensive approach to address the core issues around chronic absences, and the messaging–and campaign theme–should support this.

Among other things, attendance campaigns should:

  • Utilize relationships within the school community and supportive messaging–not legal sounding letters or automated-sounding phone calls–when reporting chronic absences to families.  This may include identifying ways to utilize two-way communication with families in order to discuss and develop supports and resources for families facing challenging situations that prevent their child from attending school regularly.
  • Provide parents resources and information on available school site health care and facts around regarding when a child should (and should not) stay home from school with an illness.
  • Remind parents of the school’s free and low cost meal options for their child, as well as transportation options.
  • Incorporate holiday reminders and return to school incentives.
  • Use praise, positive, recognition and incentives for attendance improvement and excellent attendance.
  • Connect attendance messaging to messaging about academic achievement and student success.
  • Clearly communicate that each student matters.

 

Did you notice that there is nothing mentioned about ADA (Average Daily Attendance), school funding, numbers…or COUNTING?  That’s because this kind of messaging doesn’t do anything to address barriers to attendance, and only identifies students as numbers.

Let parents know that their child matters, that you care for their child as a whole person, and reassure them that your school will support their child’s needs so that they can be successful in school and life.  After all, that’s what educators are there for, right?

Essential Content That Every Teacher Should Have on Their Website

July 24, 2019 by Leave a Comment

We are in the communication age—as such, most people will first seek to find information online.

Websites are an excellent way to provide information to parents in a 24-7 format, which saves you time in the long run.

Websites can be a natural extension of your classroom where worksheets can be downloaded, homework information can be posted, reminders and important dates are available, and more.

Tips for Success

  • Keep your content updated—this will encourage parents to visit more frequently.
  • Use images and photos to bring life to your website.
  • Let your personality shine through on your website, but balance this with professionalism.
  • Clearly communicate information in a succinct and easy-to-find format

Teacher Website Content Checklist

  • Welcome message (on home page)
  • Classroom Wish List
  • Student Supply List
  • Back to School Night Presentation (saved as a pdf so it can be downloaded)
  • Parent Teacher Conference Information
  • Daily Schedule
  • Classroom Policies and Expectations
  • Teacher Newsletters: Your website is a great place to keep an archive of these for the year so parents can easily re-locate the information
  • Grade and Homework Policies
  • Clearly labeled assignments (and downloadable assignments, where possible). Note to secondary teachers: organize this by periods/courses
  • Important Dates/Events
  • Link to School Calendar
  • Resources (based on the subjects you teach)
  • Helpful Websites
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