School-based communications is an equity issue
Written by Katie Test Davis
The district-wide science fair is coming up. Two eighth-graders, Sophia and Madison, attend two different schools in your district—BUT both of them are contenders to win this year.
Madison and Sophia know that winning the science fair will win them a tour of a local 3D printing facility in your district, and they’ll also get to meet some women in STEM leaders from your area.
Peering into a crystal ball, you can see that meeting those leaders and seeing the printing facility will inspire the fair winners to pursue a dual-enrollment opportunity in high school—setting the students up for a mega scholarship to a state university.
Sophia goes to Smith Middle.
Across town, Madison goes to Johnson Middle.
Sophia’s principal, Dr. Jones, is great about communicating district opportunities like the science fair to families. Dr. Jones ensures fliers are sent home in backpacks, text messages are sent to parents, and a newsletter goes out each week like clockwork. Sophia’s caregivers know about the science fair weeks in advance and make plans to attend. Sophia gets to work.
Madison’s principal, Dr. Miller, is, well…spotty, at best, with communicating. Dr. Miller includes the science fair opportunity in a monthly newsletter but otherwise doesn’t push it out to families. Madison hears about the opportunity from a friend-of-a-friend’s parents who attend Smith Middle with Sophia. She’s late in starting her project.
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I think you know what happens next.
When people ask me what I love about my job, my answer is simple. I love getting information to people who need it.
PR, when done right, is about access. It’s about sharing and receiving knowledge, it’s about creating and seizing opportunity.
So when I hear from superintendents and other district leaders about inconsistent communication at the school level, I think about Madison and Sophia, and I know we have an equity issue on our hands.
When one student goes to a school with stellar communications, they get a better education experience than when a student attends a school with mediocre communications. For Madison and Sophia, that’s the difference between having a life-changing scholarship or…not.
When school-based communications fail, we fail. When our school staff don’t have the tools, knowledge, skills and resources they need to do a great job communicating with their parents, that means we aren’t giving our students and their families the access to information they deserve.
Now more than ever, it’s time to invest in our principals, our assistant principals, our front desk staff and everyone in a school who communicates with parents. Our school-based communicators deserve thoughtful leadership from our district offices, clear expectations about communications and the tools they need to do a good job.
That can look like your district team sharing communications toolkits about important topics, such as student enrollment season, with your principals and school communicators. It could look like sending your leaders to communications workshops, so they build the right skills to communicate with their school families. Even sharing a monthly letter from central office to principals about key priorities, themes and sample hashtags.
Great school-based communication ensures our families have what they need, when they need it. It builds stronger communities and better students.
Let this blog be a challenge to you to ensure your school communicators have what they need to do their best work! You’ve got this.
PS - A good school outreach program is comprised of both push and pull communications—make sure your teams are well-versed in both. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Check out my blog post from a few weeks ago.
