Episode Summary

What does effective school communication look like?”

The health of your district starts and ends with connection. From the connections that happen in the classroom and outside of it—they all funnel into keeping your district healthy and tied to your purpose.

Communication plays a huge part in this.

In this episode, we’re looking at what sets apart effective school communication from ineffective school communication. We engage both business leaders and school leaders to explore a real, tactical discussion of what effective communication looks like in schools.

Episode Notes

How does effective communication shape your schools? What are the best practices to keep your community informed & to allow them to know that you’re listening to their concerns? Schools communicate all the time which means families are inundated with information, but schools need to listen to know what’s actually important to their families. 

In this episode, we’ll explore exactly how to engage with effective communication and the importance of listening to your community. Hear from experts who provide insights into communication strategies, how to listen to your community, and the tools to shape a community's perceptions and expectations of a school.

Featured in this episode are Jeff Horton, Lesley Bruinton, Greg Turchetta, and others.

Episode Transcript

Brittany Keil (Host): Here at SchoolCEO, we spend a lot of time exploring school marketing and communication. We like to get into the weeds and search for what is both cutting edge in the private sector and doable for schools who lack their resources that companies can take for granted. Season 3 of the SchoolCEO podcast is all about the questions that drive our work. Our question today is, what does effective school communication look like? 

For a quick refresher, I'm Brittany Keil. I've been the research and external relations manager at SchoolCEO for a couple of years, but before that, I was a teacher. 

In our previous episode, we talked about brand and marketing. Brand is how people think and feel about your schools, while marketing is using your brand to further your district's mission. In this episode, we'll engage both business leaders and school leaders to explore a real tactical discussion of what effective communication looks like in schools.

But first, let's start with a story. 

Last year, my family had the big fun of getting to travel to Australia to visit family. While we were there, we were delighted to get to visit some of the best beaches in the world with our toddler who loves nothing more than chasing crabs and running from the waves. In the summer, the beaches in Australia can get pretty crowded, and we weren't surprised to find our first beach full of families and teenagers and other beachgoers. What did surprise us was how much we stuck out. It wasn't our American accents, but rather this: we were almost the only family at the beach in traditional swimsuits. Every other person from age 1 to 100 was wearing a much more layered outfit complete with a sun shirt, usually a hat, and sunglasses. My husband was actually embarrassed to realize he would be the only one with bare shoulders in the swimming area. 

But how did this happen? It turns out that I was witnessing the result of a massive creative communications campaign. In the 1980s, Australia had one of the highest skin cancer rates in the world. The two most common types of skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, are directly tied to sun exposure. But how can health officials convince Australians to stay out of the sun when spending time outdoors is a vital part of the Australian identity? After some early failures that focus on sharing scary statistics, officials realized that they needed to find a way to help Australians keep sun protection in mind while still getting to do what they love. And so they built a campaign called Slip Slop Slap. Slip stands for slipping on sun protective clothing like a sun shirt, Slop stands for slopping on sunscreen, and Slap is all about slapping on a hat. They put this all together in a very, very hard to get out of your head jingle. 

[Excerpt from Slip, Slop, Slap Jingle]

Slip, Slop, Slap Jingle: …just say these simple words: Slip! Slop! Slap! It sounds like a phrase when you say it like that…

The jingle is sung by a happy singing seagull, and it's about as Australian as it gets, and it was an instant hit. The seagull, rather than focusing on eliminating sun exposure altogether, kind of sings about how to get the most and safest amount of fun. It became the Stop, Drop, and Roll of the 1980s & 1990s in Australia, and it's now credited with a massive drop in skin cancer rates over the past 40 years. 

Slip Slop Slap is now known as one of the most successful public safety campaigns in history. But what made it so successful? It successfully connected its goal to decrease Australian skin cancer rates to a message that its audience could understand and get behind. The marketers were able to connect what they needed to happen with the values that were already true for their audience.

In this episode, we're looking at what sets apart effective school communication from ineffective school communication, and we think it's this: Schools communicate all the time, and that means that families are inundated with information all the time. But schools need to know and they need to listen to know what's actually important to their families. That way, they can hone in on what families need and reinforce their school's brand along the way. 

As I've mentioned before, I spent most of my career as a special educator, a role that I loved and will always deeply value. In my years in the classroom, I developed a knack for working with students who had challenges around communication. Some of them were pre verbal and some of them are what some people call nonverbal. But in the end, when I worked with their families to build annual goals for my students, we spent a lot of time talking about talking. Many families I worked with were frustrated and desperate even to help their child communicate with the world around them. But as we built goals around communication, I always took the time to remind my families that there are actually 2 types of communication, receptive and expressive communication. 

Expressive communication or expressive language is how we use words to express ourselves. When most people think about language or talking, this is what we think of. Receptive language, on the other hand, is how well we understand language, how well we are able to listen and make sense of what's being said. A lot of times, people who struggle in one type of language might excel in another. Many of my students who, what some might label as nonverbal, could follow multi-step directions and understood pretty much everything that was being said around them. And while, typically, verbal people are more capable of communicating in a traditional way, it doesn't mean that we're always great at the whole package, especially when it comes to listening and interpreting what we're hearing. 

So if we're having a conversation about what makes a strong school communication program, we can't just talk about how well schools are sending out communications because that's only half of the equation. We also have to talk about how schools can get better at the other side of things and how well schools can listen. 

For a little on this, we turn to Michael C. Bush, the CEO of Great Place to Work, the global research and analytics firm that produces lists like the Fortune 100 best companies to work for list.

[Excerpt from SchoolCEO Conversations Season 2 episode - Michael C. Bush: Learning to Be A Great Place to Work]

Michael C. Bush: “It doesn't matter what industry you pick. They're all working with their leaders on the same things. Number one, improving the listening skills of their leaders. That's number one. Because without a good leader who's a good listener, then, you're not gonna do well in the other areas of leadership. Because the ultimate show of respect is listening. It's being engaged in a conversation with somebody where the other person gets the feeling that, wow, this person's really listening. You know, it's so rare to be in a conversation like that that it stands out for people. And what a great listener does is they ask questions. They're curious, which is a sign of humility. And by asking questions, they're demonstrating that they don't know everything. And they're seeking and searching, and they think you might help. Ultimate show of respect. 

Michael C. Bush: “If you're not a great listener, you can't be empathetic. If you're not a great listener, you can't be compassionate, which is when you learn something about somebody else feeling moved to do something for them. You know, when you're not a great listener, you don't know how to give feedback in a manner that will move that person to alter the way they're behaving. You know, which is in a compassionate, clear, candid way. If you're not a great listener, you're not paying attention to the importance of how to welcome people.”

So you may use important tools surveys, parent councils, or listening tours to get an idea of what your company thinks about you. But for a district to successfully listen to its stakeholders, it needs to go beyond just checking the boxes. Polls, town halls, and partnerships show that your district is willing to hear your community, but how can you show people that you're actually listening? 

This is something that we've explored with another guest we've had on our podcast, Doctor Jeff Horton of GFW Schools in Minnesota. Dr. Horton started at GFW in a time when the district was in crisis, both financially and organizationally. When he arrived at the district, Dr. Horton did a listening tour, which isn't unique in and of itself. What is unique, however, is the empathy with which he was able to convey and then use to his advantage as he gave his community hope.

[Excerpt from SchoolCEO Conversations Season 2 episode - Dr. Jeff Horton: Courageous Communications]

Dr. Jeff Horton: “I tried to go to every gathering I could just to be available to listen, and there was definitely some themes that emerged. And I think in our district, I think there was a lot of hurt that was going on at the time. The district had gone from a place where we were one of the first districts in the state of Minnesota to go 1-to-1. And so that's a district that says, ‘hey, we're innovative, we're ahead of the curve.’ To a place not even a decade later that you're looking at possible dissolution and not even having a district because your finances are in disarray, schools are getting closed and you're wondering how did we get here, a place that had so much pride and, you know, had a lot of success in many different areas of academics and technology, athletics and activities to to this. I think there's a lot of hurt and a lot of confusion as to what happened. This isn't the school that I remember because a lot of our folks stay here and they were graduates and, like, what has happened and why has that happened? So I think that was a theme I heard. The second thing I think I heard was they wanted a reason to believe. So despite the frustrations, despite the hurt, they were most people were looking for a path forward. They're like, how do we get out of this? How do we get back to what we perceive once was? And I think that was really important. So there's a strong degree of hope. And that's a very powerful thing. And if you can work with people to understand what it is they're trying to do and provide them a place to channel that energy and that passion, you know, you can do amazing things.”

Dr. Horton goes on to talk about how GFW went from failing a bond by 80% to passing it, all before he had been in the seat for two months. GFW Schools is now an award winning district in its state, and that all started with listening. When you're listening to your community, it could be challenging not to fall in what we call reactive mode, where you're responding to complaints to fix minor problems rather than thinking about overall strategy. And given our recent research for SchoolCEO, that's a real problem. Most of the communicators in their survey pool really hated that they didn't have more time for proactive work. And for some insight to this, we turned to veteran school communicator, Greg Turchetta.

[Excerpt from SchoolCEO Conversations Season 2 episode - Greg Turchetta: Winning at School Communications]

Greg Turchetta: “So reactive should be reserved for school based crisis or employees and students, as I like to say, that behave badly. Right? There's always gonna be those stories that come along. But really, I think 75% of your time needs to be in the proactive, building the reputation and the brand that could withstand the reactive crisis that comes.”

Talking to Greg is a lesson in enthusiasm and pragmatism.

Greg Turchetta: “Now the interesting thing about this is I think we have more control over that very question than most people realize. If you feel like you're in reactive mode all the time, you don't have a plan. And what I mean by that is our number one skill of a communicator is the ability to anticipate and look over the horizon at what's possibly brewing and hopefully neutralize it as it starts to percolate. Right? So at the same time though, you have to have a a communication strategy that works when you're not in crisis. So if you're out telling your story and you're using transparency, and you're showing the decision making and engaging families in the positivity that's going on in your school district ahead of time, that that capital really pays off when the crisis hits.”

Communications professionals can shift the trajectory of a district's ability to effectively build messaging and maintain strong connections with their community. Whether a school district has a dedicated communications professional or not, effective school comms requires the kind of work best done by a professional. 

So think of it this way: my house needs a new roof, and if I wanted to, I could watch a YouTube video about how to roof a house and buy shingles off Facebook Marketplace and try to do it myself. It would probably take me a very long time, and I could maybe do it and hopefully not fall off my roof. But would I do as good a job as a professional roofer? Absolutely, positively not. Also, my insurance probably wouldn't cover it. 

The same is true for school communications. But even if you can't afford to hire a school communicator, which we know is a reality for many districts and one we doubt will disappear overnight, there has to be someone who is responsible for your school communications.

But even in districts where school communicators are present, they're not always well supported. Lesley Bruinton, former communications director at Tuscaloosa City Schools and CEO of School Spirit PR has a lot to say about this.

[Excerpt from SchoolCEO Conversations Season 1 episode - Lesley Bruinton, APR: Directing Strategic Communications]

Lesley Bruinton: “I like to think really deeply about, some of the challenges that school systems face. And there are lots of schools who have a public relations or communications professional, but don't really know how to utilize us. We're kind of this undervalued, underutilized resource, and so some of us kind of hang out in the background waiting to be helpful, waiting to be asked, and trying to figure out how do I fit in. And even mentoring I'm doing of practitioners that are just starting their careers in school PR, they're finding that too, that no one has expressly told them what they want them to do.”

And our research says something pretty similar. While most school communicators indicate that they do have a seat at the table and are in the kind of rooms where decisions are made, many of them express frustration that they struggle to find time to focus on long term strategy. Rather, their time is spent doing the task that they rated as both low on the important scale and high on the time commitment scale, such as social media or putting out small fires. By the way, I will put this chart in the show notes, so please take a look. 

At SchoolCEO, we often say that every district has a brand whether they know it or not, and the same is true for school communications. Every district has a communications plan, even if the district hasn't yet invested the time intentionality into it. 

The National School Public Relations Association, more commonly known as NSPRA, has put years into building the most comprehensive set of metrics around what makes an effective school communications program. And let me tell you, it is a tome. But if you're lucky enough to get it in person at one of their seminars, they bring it to you in a binder. And while it might be overwhelming at first glance, NSPRA has a long track record of making sure it's proven valuable to communications professionals and school leaders of all kinds of districts in all kinds of places with school comms.

Karen Heath is the Director of Communication at Berrien Regional Service Agency in Michigan. She also serves on the executive board at NSPRA. For her, the rubrics of practice are an excellent place for any school communicator to start or push themselves in their program further.

Karen Heath: “So when thinking about the values, the mission, our strategic plan, those goals that we really want to implement. This, the rubric helps me identify my starting point. Right? So I can assess, do my own surveys, my own focus groups, do that SWOT analysis, and really understand where are we right now and then identify where we are in the rubric and then go from there. I build my entire strategic plan, my entire communications plan based on what those next steps are. And what's really great about this tool is you can start anywhere.”

So let's pull this all together. There's a really famous 80 year old longitudinal research project from Harvard called the Grant Study. It's one of the most cited pieces of research in the modern world and for good reason. You've probably heard of it. It studied the lives of 268 Harvard educated male undergrads from graduation to death. Its goal was to answer the following question, what factors are important in predicting if a person is going to remain healthy as they age? 

When they started, most of the researchers assumed that the most important predictors would be tied to wealth or their upbringing, but that's not actually what they found. Rather, the biggest predictor of healthy aging is social connection. The men with the most friends and closest relationships, the men who sent letters and met their friends for coffee, live healthier lives and often died happier people. We think the same is true for schools.

The health of your district starts and ends with connection. From the connections that happen in the classroom to outside of it, they all funnel into keeping your district healthy and tied to its purpose, all while being supported by your community. Communication, of course, plays a huge part in this. 

We started this podcast with a big question, what does effective school communication look like? And as you've listened, you've probably realized that it's a big answer too. But in short, a strong comms program is one that facilitates connection, one that listens, takes action, and supports the professionals doing the work.

The SchoolCEO podcast is brought to you by Apptegy. You can find a transcript for this episode and full issues of our magazine at SchoolCEO.com. If you like what you hear, subscribe to our newsletter and get bite sized tips on school marketing sent straight to your inbox. If you follow us on social media, we'll let you know when new episodes drop. Our magazine's most avid readers attend our annual SchoolCEO Conference. It's a great way to meet communications professionals and superintendents from across the country while exchanging ideas in a dedicated learning environment. Visit schoolceo.com/conference to see this year's lineup of keynote speakers and reserve your seat today. 

Season 3 of the SchoolCEO podcast is produced by Tyler Vawser, Britney Keil, Tanner Cox, and Ryan McDonald, with Eileen Beard as contributing editor. Thank you for listening.

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