SchoolCEO Summer 2019

SchoolCEO The School Marketing Magazine SUMMER 2019

Profile: Dr. Susan Enfield Growing Your Advocates Engaging Senior Citizens

Who stands up for your schools when you’re not around?

OUR STAFF: Executive Editor: David Allan Art Director: Sebastian Andrei Copy Writers/Researchers: Joy Spence, Rheannon Burnside, Melissa Hite, Barrett Goodwin, Corey Whaley Graphic Designers/Illustrators: Corbin Lawrence, Blake Organ Video Producer: Ryan McDonald Social Media Manager: Jacob Neeley Apptegy CEO: Jeston George

PUBLISHED BY:

Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, Apptegy is an education technology company dedicated to helping school leaders build a powerful identity for their schools.

Learn more at apptegy.com

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Good News in Public Schools All over the country, great things are happening in schools. We’ll share just a few.

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Heart Work

Dr. Susan Enfield’s fierce dedication to equity is fulfilling her district’s promise: to know every student by name, strength, and need.

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SchoolCEO Conversations

After speaking to 40 school leaders across the U.S., we’re sharing their best marketing tips and tricks with you.

20 The Advocacy Marketing Manifesto By planting meaningful moments, you can tug the conversation around your schools toward positivity.

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Superintendent Q&A: Dr. Christina Kishimoto

As the state’s foremost school leader, this Hawaii superintendent faces challenges as unique as the islands themselves.

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Seeking Seniors

How do you engage your community’s senior citizens? We’ll show you how to market to this often overlooked demographic.

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Selling SEL

In this edition’s Superintendent Perspectives, Dr. Joseph Ricca shares his passion for social-emotional learning—and tips for getting your community on board.

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Looking for Leaders

At this year’s AASA NCE, we asked superintendents what they look for in school leaders. Here’s what they had to say.

Vol. 1, No. 4 © 2019 by Apptegy, Inc. All rights reserved. Permission to reprint or quote excerpts granted by written request only. SchoolCEO™ is published 4 times a year (November, February, May, and August) by Apptegy, Inc., 425 W Capitol Ave. Suite 800 Little Rock, AR 72201. Send address changes to SchoolCEO™, 425 W Capitol Ave. Suite 800 Little Rock, AR 72201. Views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the magazine or Apptegy, Inc. Accordingly, no liability is assumed by the publisher thereof.

Letter from the Editor Since this magazine launched, I’ve gotten to interview hundreds of superintendents and other district leaders about how they think about school marketing. The most common things I hear are: 1) “Marketing is really important right now!” and 2) “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

This makes sense. As a school leader, your training is in school administration, not private sector marketing. (If you took a class on education marketing in your graduate program, please let me know—I haven’t found it in any curriculum.) But the more our team explores the topic, the more I believe that school leaders understand marketing better than they think.

Even in the private sector, most companies get one crucial point about marketing wrong. They think it’s about tactics, when what really matters is influence. If you can shape how people think and feel about a topic, you control the conversation. The best marketers set themselves apart from their competitors by forming real emotional connections with their audiences.

If connection and influence are a marketer’s best tools, then maybe working your way up from the classroom to district leadership is actually the best marketing training you could ask for. If your goal is to rally the community around the cause of public education, you’re not really marketing. You’re leading.

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We’ll tackle this idea head-on in “The Advocacy Marketing Manifesto.” The article explores how educators can strategically shift the conversation around their schools by doing what they already do best, connecting. In “Seeking Seniors,” we’ll use these same ideas to show you how schools can engage older citizens in their communities.

I’m also super excited about a new project we launched a few months ago: SchoolCEO Conversations. Through short, 15-minute phone calls, we’ve been reaching out to our subscribers to learn how they implement school marketing in the real world. Lots of what you’re about to read came out of these calls. If you would like to take part in this project, please email me at editor@schoolceo.com.

This issue marks the end of volume one of SchoolCEO. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the magazine, speak with us, or send a message of support.

It means the world to us.

David Allan Executive Editor, SchoolCEO

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. — Sydney J. Harris

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Good News in Public Schools Columbia, MO

Independence, MO

At Battle High School, 18 students are building tiny houses to learn more about geometry and other math principles through the “Geometry in Construction” curriculum. In about 500 schools nationwide, students are learning geometry by building everything from chicken coops to backyard furniture.

(Education Week)

Students from Van Horn High School used their woodworking skills to build pergolas for Shep’s Place, a sanctuary for older dogs waiting to be adopted. Due to the generosity of the students, the senior dogs at Shep’s Place now have somewhere to rest in the shade.

Dayton, ME

Minneapolis, MN

Dayton Consolidated School found an inclusive way to welcome its newest student. When six-year-old Morey, who communicates in American Sign Language, started school, staff, teachers, and students greeted her with the sign language they’d learned in their free time. Morey is now teaching her class to sign the whole alphabet.

(Good News Network)

Ahmed Ali, a non-verbal student graduating from Minneapolis Public Schools, was the district’s first student to give the commencement speech using a voice synthesizer. Ahmed told his fellow classmates, “Your life is a relay race. Every time you achieve something, you pass the baton to the next person. Guess who you are passing the baton to? It’s you.”

(Good News Network)

Richmond, VA

San Antonio, TX

Robert Dunham, a teacher at Carver Elementary School, treated many of his students to haircuts in preparation for their elementary graduation. Dunham, knowing that many of his students come from underserved communities, wanted them to feel their best on this special occasion. “I want every one of my students to be confident today,” he told NewsOne. “This is their special day.”

(NewsOne)

D’Shantell Robledo, an 18-year-old student at Roosevelt High School, started a yoga club for students to relieve stress in a healthy, positive way. “In high school, we all get stressed out for the smallest things. Having a yoga club there helps relieve that,” said Robledo. Twice a month, the club brings a professional yoga instructor onto campus to guide students.

(KSAT 12 ABC)

(KOCO News 5 ABC)

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Heart Dr. Susan Enfield is leading the fight for discipline reform and equity in a diverse district.

About ten miles south of Seattle sits a school district with a bold promise: to know each and every one of its 19,000 students by name, strength, and need. In an urban school system where the student body speaks over 100 languages, this promise may seem hard to keep.

Enter Dr. Susan Enfield. After teaching high school in Cupertino, California, she entered Harvard’s Urban Superintendents Program. By the time she began her tenure as superintendent at Highline Public Schools in 2012, Enfield had worked for the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, directed Teaching and Learning Support offices on both coasts, served as Deputy Superintendent of Evergreen Schools in Vancouver, and taken the helm as Interim Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools.

need? Let’s not just find out where we need to support kids; let’s find out where they excel, where they’re strong, so we can build their confidence and resilience.’”

The Highline Promise goes well beyond words on a page.

“It has truly become the DNA of our system,” Enfield says.

“It’s everywhere you go. We really try to make it a living, breathing thing each and every day. We believe every one of our students is brilliant, beautiful, and brimming with promise.”

When she started at Highline, Enfield took inspiration from Yvette Jackson’s The Pedagogy of Confidence: Inspiring High Intellectual Performance in Urban Schools to help develop the Highline Promise. Jackson’s book begs the question: What if we treat every child as gifted? “As a former teacher, I had always advocated for knowing every student by name and need,” Enfield tells us. “But, in the context of the conversation with staff and this book, I said, ‘What if it was about knowing every student by name, strength, and SUMMER 2019 / SchoolCEO

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Advocating for equity has been the foundation of Enfield’s nearly 30-year career. Her doctoral dissertation focused on academic achievement through equitable resource distribution, and she’s also written academically on keeping public education fair in the aftermath of No Child Left Behind. As a superintendent, she’s contributed pieces to the Seattle Times on the social discourse surrounding student poverty and its effects on learning and safety, especially in diverse school communities.

“Our diversity is our identity,” she says of her district.

“You cannot walk into a homogeneous classroom at Highline. It’s really what binds us together.”

Keeping the Promise Most schools have mission statements, but Enfield and her staff wanted something more meaningful that would impact the entire school community in real, quantifiable ways.

“A promise implies action,” she says. So the superintendent wasted no time at all fulfilling the district’s commitment to its students.

When she started at Highline, the school system was “hemorrhaging kids.” The year before she arrived, the district had over 2,200 suspensions and expulsions. It wasn’t just a discipline issue for Enfield. It was an issue of equity. “The demographic of the students we were suspending and expelling was pretty clear, and they didn’t look like me,” she adds. “We were out-of-school suspending students, especially our African American students, at unacceptably high rates. I knew we had to do something” (see Figure 2).

Not only were Highline’s discipline policies disproportionately affecting students of color, but often the punishments didn’t fit the crimes. “The number one cause for suspension was defiance,” she tells us. “I was a high school teacher.

You don’t suspend a kid for defiance, you deal with it.”

Enfield responded by proposing a seemingly impossible goal: to completely eliminate out-of-school suspensions and expulsions district-wide. “Except when we really have to,” she says—when it’s an issue of staff or student safety.

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Facing Pushback As President Obama led a national conversation on school discipline procedures and their disproportionate effects on students of color, Enfield pitched her idea for sweeping discipline reform to a group of Highline principals. One of them later told her that she’d jotted down “WTF this lady’s crazy” on a notepad during the meeting, a story the superintendent now shares with a big smile. “I kind of just threw the idea out there and let people think about it,” she says.

When the district’s strategic planning process began, Enfield’s idea was on the minds of the district’s broader group of stakeholders—parents, union leaders, teachers, students, and community members. Together they took this “WTF” idea and made it a major goal in Highline’s strategic plan. It was about “planting the seed,” Enfield says, and “letting people come to own it on their own.”

That was just the beginning of the battle, though.

“Establishing the goal and doing the work was met with significant pushback,” she tells us. “That change was incredibly hard, because yes, we could change board policy; yes, we could put resources in the schools to create alternatives to suspension; yes, we could train staff on de-escalation. But the heart of that work was changing the culture of our schools to be one where adults and students are in a mutually respectful relationship.

That is hard change. And that takes time.”

So how does a new superintendent go about making such broad, systemic changes in her district? First, Enfield says, she needed to provide a certain level of tactical and practical support in Highline’s schools. “We put in a re-engagement specialist at every high school, rewrote our policy, and rewrote procedures,” she says. “But the culture piece really just came over time by having honest, hard conversations with staff while accepting the pushback.”

Enfield knew the best way to help teachers and staff was to simply ask, “What do you need?” This helped her rally a vast and passionate group of advocates for her cause. And when she couldn’t speak to staff directly, she made sure building leaders were delivering the message for her. A lot of it, she found, was about listening, celebrating successes, and sharing best practices for making the goal reachable.

FIGURE 1. NUMBER OF SUSPENSIONS & EXPULSIONS BY SCHOOL YEAR 2500

Number of Students

2000

1500

1000

500

0

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

In-School Suspensions

2016-17

2017-18

Out-of-School Suspensions & Expulsions

FIGURE 2. PERCENT OF STUDENTS WITH ONE OR MORE OUT-OF-SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS OR EXPULSIONS 2012-2013

2017-2018

15%

9% 6% 3%

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Changing the Culture “The biggest thing with change,” Enfield says, “is even when it’s for the right reasons and it’s the right thing, you can still get it wrong.” She mentions the importance of being willing to listen and course-correct. “We had a lot of pain points along the way and learned a lot of lessons.”

After years of implementing Highline’s goal, Enfield says she finally had a “big light bulb moment” when everything became clear to her. “Wait a second, we’re focusing on the wrong thing,” she thought. “The goal isn’t to reduce out-of-school suspensions and expulsions; the goal is to create schools where kids thrive, where they feel respected and challenged and loved and appreciated. The suspension and expulsion numbers are just a metric.”

“The goal isn’t to reduce out-of-school suspensions and expulsions; the goal is to create schools where kids thrive, where they feel respected and challenged and loved and appreciated.”

Enfield knew Highline needed to shift its focus from this metric to a plan that helped further address the culture creating their issues. So she asked herself and her staff this guiding question: How could they establish a system kids want to be part of?

To measure progress across the district, Highline has kept data on its strategic plan since 2013. They ask staff the same three questions every year: “Do you know of the goals in the strategic plan? Do you support the goals in the strategic plan? Do you have the resources to deliver on those goals?” Enfield says it’s all about “tapping into people’s belief that this is the right thing to do, and then figuring out how to make it manageable.”

But manageable doesn’t always mean easy. “Somehow there’s a belief among folks that if we had all the right money and all the right strategies and all the right systems and structures in place, that the work would be easy,” she says.

“We have to be really honest: This work will never be easy.

If you want easy, then you need to go somewhere else.”

Highline lost some teachers during this time, but they also gained new staff who wanted to be part of the culture. That, in turn, helped further change their system for the better. “To do right by our children,” Enfield says, “we’re going to have to make our lives harder. That’s the way it works. If we are going to continue to adapt, evolve, and improve on delivering equitable school systems, we have to be in that space.”

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Raising the Bar While much of her career has focused on creating more equitable schools, Enfield stresses that supporting students also means maintaining high expectations for all of them.

Empathy and compassion are critical, but high poverty systems run the risk of lowering the bar and creating “white savior complexes” in schools. “You have to make sure your empathy doesn’t devolve into pity,” she says. “Pity does our kids no service. I want you to have empathy and compassion, but the best thing you can do for our children is raise the bar, not lower it. It’s about heart work as much as hard work. It should be deeply personal.”

Because she asks so much of her staff, Enfield knows how important it is to provide mental and emotional support for them as well. She starts by fostering an environment that acknowledges teachers and staff for constantly putting their hearts on the line. Highline strives to be a community that

encourages teachers to take emotional and physical care of themselves as well. “To me, as a leader, it’s also modeling health and family first,” she says. “Otherwise, you have nothing to bring to the kids.”

“The thing about self-care is it’s self. I can’t do that for you,” she explains. “Yes, go on that vacation, take that mental health day, do what you’ve got to do, because I need you to bring your A-game when you come to school, because our kids really need that. What so many of our students go through ... the fact that they show up at all is a miracle.

Crime, trauma, poverty—all of that is a reality in too many of our kids’ lives. If I were living what some of them are dealing with, I’d be in a fetal position under the covers.

But they show up! I need people to be their best selves, because that’s what our kids deserve.”

In changing the culture for the better, Enfield and her team realized they’d also crafted a profound, effective recruiting tool. “We did have a number of teachers who left, but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing,” she says. “If you don’t share the value and mission and priorities of your organization, then it’s not the organization for you.”

The culture change brought on by the Highline Promise hasn’t just delivered a better learning experience for the students of Enfield’s district. It has also attracted highly skilled, passionate teachers who share the belief that every child deserves a meaningful education—one that meets their needs and celebrates their strengths. “It’s become our identity,” Enfield adds. “It really is who we are.”

By implementing this difficult goal, Highline was actually making a “very clear, explicit, and loud value statement,” Enfield tells us. “We were saying, as a system: We’re not going to throw our kids away. We’re not going to let a mistake turn into a lost diploma.”

When it comes to finding the right leaders for Highline’s schools, Enfield says she needs people with “the right mindset and heart for the work.” But she adds that “there’s also a skill set. It’s important to me that our building principals are strong instructional leaders, and I need them to also manage their buildings in service of instruction.”

Photo courtesy of Highline Public Schools

It’s Who We Are In regards to her own leadership style, Enfield believes she’s been fairly consistent but continues to grow and learn. “I’m not a micromanager,” she says. “My job is really to put the conditions in place for people to do the work and not to get in the way of that.” She also believes that, as superintendent, she “sets the tone” for the district.

“Even though I’m getting older,” she tells us, “I still bring a pretty high energy level to the work because I really love it.

And I think it requires it. When I first came to Highline, some people would say, You’re going so fast, and I would say, I’m only going as fast as our kids need me to go. So the question is, when are you going to step it up? Because our kids don’t get a do-over, so we need to get it right. I’m unapologetic about holding the adults in the system accountable for that.”

It’s pretty clear that Dr. Enfield holds herself, her staff, and her students to the highest of standards—and perhaps that’s why delivering on something as bold as the Highline Promise doesn’t seem so impossible on her watch.

When the National School Foundation Association named Enfield the 2018 National Superintendent of the Year, they described her as a “uniquely strong advocate for community support of public education and a remarkable collaborator.”

Now, seven years into her time at Highline, out-of-school suspensions and expulsions are occurring at a mere fraction of the rates they were when she started. Even more importantly, Enfield can also see the Highline Promise, which started it all, alive and well in every school she visits.

Recently, one of her middle school students asked her, “The promise is every student known by name, strength, and need, right?” Enfield told her she was right. The girl continued, “So shouldn’t school be about finding the gifts in every student?”

Every student should be known by name, strength, and need.

“That’s exactly what school should be about,” her superintendent agreed.

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SchoolCEO Conversations When we ask school leaders who they look to for guidance in tackling their most difficult challenges, the answer is always the same: one another. Running a district requires a unique skill set, one that’s hard to master—or even understand—until you’ve stepped into the role.

So we had an idea. Let’s get school leaders to share their strategies here, through our magazine, like they’re sitting at a hotel lounge during a conference or comparing stories in a group text. (Maybe a little less fun than that.)

Since our last issue, we’ve begun a new interview series we’re calling SchoolCEO Conversations. Reaching out to our subscribers, we’ve chatted with superintendents, communications directors, marketing executives, and more about best practices when it comes to marketing a school district.

In the pages that follow, you’ll get a glimpse into how three school leaders—all communications directors—practice school marketing.

Want to share your story, idea, or breakthrough?

Email: editor@schoolceo.com

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Get kids involved.

Connect face-to-face.

Elsa Covarrubias

Joëlle Doye

Elsa Covarrubias is always looking for new ways to impress her school community. “We don’t want our parents just to be satisfied,” Covarrubias says. “We want them excited.

We want them saying, ‘Wow.’ And we’re making every effort through our communication media to get them there.”

Joëlle Doye isn’t just her district’s Communications Director. She’s also the former vice president and current board member of the local chamber of commerce, a former president and current board member of the Kiwanis Club, and a member of the Education Endowment Board.

She accomplishes this, at least in part, by involving the students themselves in her marketing efforts. For example, each district newsletter includes a “kid columnist” story, written by an elementary student. “People love it,” she says.

“The kids love it.”

“In lots of districts, the superintendent holds those positions,” Doye tells SchoolCEO. “But we’ve found that people aren’t always comfortable talking to the superintendent.” Since she’s further down the chain of command, people often feel more at ease telling Doye what they’re thinking.

Director of Communications and Public Information Anaheim Elementary School District, CA

Covarrubias would also like to involve students in one of her most successful engagement tools: Instagram stories.

“I would love to have kids do little takeovers at school and tell their stories themselves,” she says. “It would be fun for the parents to watch, and it would really teach the students 21st-century skills.” After all, Covarrubias herself knows how valuable knowledge of social media can be to a future career—she uses those skills every day.

“Even on a small scale, I would love to give our students the opportunity to explore the world of social media responsibly under the guidance of the adults in their lives,” she says.

“We’re a school district! That’s what we should be doing.”

“

Communications Director Mineral Point Unified School District, WI

“I think it’s good that we have more than one face for the district,” she says. “I can be an extra set of ears and eyes out there in the community—I can hear concerns that people have and answer them, or relay them to the proper person.”

And as Doye knows well, those face-to-face interactions are critical—often even more so than traditional marketing tactics. “I think some people spend too much time on digital stuff,” she tells us. “It’s a lot of legwork, but building those face-to-face relationships is more beneficial in the long run for creating a high level of trust around your schools.”

A simple face-to-face conversation may not feel like marketing, but according to Doye, it is. “It’s not just what I’m doing on social media,” she says. “Everything we do every single day is marketing for our district, from the way we answer phone calls to our email responses.”

Everything we do every single day is marketing for our district, from the way we answer phone calls to our email responses.

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Combat your weaknesses with memorable experiences.

Melissa Martinez

Communications Director El Paso ISD, TX After 20 years as a journalist, Melissa Martinez knows how to ask the right questions. “When you’re a reporter, you have to be an expert in a lot of different fields,” she tells SchoolCEO. “Not only do you have to get the public the information they want to hear, but you have to anticipate what the public wants to know.”

This expertise came in handy as she transitioned into the school communications field. “When I started in this role, I had to learn all of the jargon, terms, and policies that come with K-12 education, so I just started asking a lot of questions,” she says. “My job is to be a voice for the district and to not only communicate our message, but help strategize it. I can anticipate what questions the community will ask, what parents want to know, and what information they need. This crafts the district’s story, which makes this job no different than when I was a reporter.”

And when the district began to face the daunting challenge of declining enrollment, Martinez’s journalistic training paid off. “El Paso is the largest, oldest urban district in the county,” she says. “We have an aging population and older neighborhoods, as well as the most private and charter schools in our district’s boundaries in the area.” This led Martinez and the rest of administration at El Paso to ask themselves, “What can we do to retain our current students and recruit new ones?”

At the beginning, El Paso ISD combatted the decline by becoming an open enrollment district. However, it was their marketing savvy that really set them apart. “We started promoting ourselves to those who weren’t looking at us as an option,” says Martinez. They started slowly, first using traditional channels like television, radio, and direct mail. But as they gained their footing, they added more marketing strategies to their roster: social media, digital marketing, and in-person events.

For the past two years, one of El Paso’s greatest marketing efforts has been a district-wide event they call the Discover EPISD Expo. The expo brings all 85 of the district’s campuses together, highlighting specialty programs in each school.

“The event shows exactly what we have to offer to community members and families,” Martinez says.

“We make sure that each campus puts their best foot forward and shows something engaging and interactive.”

Even students get in on the fun: clubs and other groups hold performances and presentations throughout the day.

“We definitely make it worthwhile to come out on a Saturday,” Martinez says.

And the event has been a successful investment for the district, drawing over 1,000 community members each year.

“It’s the perfect way to reach out to people who might not be familiar with EPISD,” says Martinez. “Parents and families are able to meet teachers and administrators one-on-one and find out more about our schools.”

Beyond getting the word out about the district, the expo produced an additional benefit: inspiring EPISD’s staff.

“Seeing the magnitude of all of our schools and programs together has helped give a boost to our employees,” says Martinez. “We see this sense of pride, where they say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know all of these wonderful things are happening. I’m so proud to be a part of EPISD.’” Martinez also feels that same sense of pride. “Once you see it put together and you see our employees beaming, it gives us a new opportunity to look at all of the great things we’ve done in the past year,” she says. “It reminds myself, our staff, families, and community members why EPISD is an impressive organization.”

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The

Advocacy Marketing Manifesto A radical new system for transforming how people talk about your schools

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Coming from the world of private sector marketing, our team has done everything from social media management to ad creation to content generation. We still believe in the power of these practices, but if you hired us to run your district’s marketing, we would focus our energy somewhere else.

It’s the conversations people have in the most mundane moments that influence your community’s perception of your schools. It’s a chat at the grocery store, parents talking during soccer practice, grandparents meeting up for book club: the stories people tell about your schools when you’re not around. Those stories, more than anything else, determine how your audience thinks and feels—which is why we’d focus our marketing efforts on shaping them.

In the following pages, we’ll lay out a strategy for shifting the conversation around your schools: systematically developing brand advocates who will do your marketing for you. This plan takes diligence, commitment, and a little bit of guts—but it’s exactly what we’d do if we were in your shoes.

Conversations, stories, and your brain While we may feel as if we make choices based on logic and reason, neuroscientific research has revealed that emotions actually power our decision-making. And what’s the best way into your audience’s emotions? Stories.

Of course, you already know you should be sharing your district’s amazing stories, blasting them out all over social media. But here’s the problem: according to a study from Nielsen, 92% of people trust the recommendations of loved ones above all other forms of marketing. In other words, what you say about yourself matters much less than what others say about you. Storytelling is the best way to change the decisions your community makes, but the stories you share yourself aren’t nearly as effective as those told by members of your community.

If you want to change how your community responds to your district, you have to change the conversation surrounding your schools. You need a mechanism for giving people positive stories worth telling their friends and family. You need advocacy marketing.

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What advocates are (and why you need them) The members of your community fall into one of three segments: detractors, neutrals, or advocates. Your detractors, with or without good reason, advertise their dissatisfaction with your schools. They complain during board meetings, make nasty posts about your district on Facebook, and criticize your schools to their friends and neighbors. The problem with detractors isn’t just that they’re unhappy; it’s that they’re very vocal about it. They’re the ones driving the negative rhetoric surrounding schools.

In the middle, you have neutrals, people who aren’t contributing much to the district conversation either way.

Of course, hardly anyone is truly neutral; most people are leaning either slightly negative or slightly positive when it comes to your district. At best, they feel very positive about your schools—but they aren’t actually voicing that goodwill.

Neutrals aren’t necessarily part of the negativity surrounding your schools, but they’re also not helping you address it.

That leaves your district’s advocates: people who tell positive stories about your schools. While these may be the folks regularly volunteering on campus or attending PTA meetings, they could just as easily be random community members sharing stories about your schools over coffee.

Because people trust their friends and family more than marketing messages, both your detractors and your advocates have significantly more power over the conversation around your schools than you do. This means that both positivity and negativity are contagious—and those people in the middle, your neutrals, are being influenced one way or the other. Your detractors are infecting their neutral friends and family with negative ideas about your schools. But your advocates are sharing positive stories about your district with their neighbors.

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You might be tempted to throw all your energy toward your detractors, trying to convince them to quit tugging the conversation toward negativity. That’s certainly a common strategy in the private sector. In researching their book The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath discovered that, in general, private sector companies spend 80% of their resources trying to neutralize negative voices.

But more likely than not, a converted detractor will become, at best, a neutral—not an impassioned advocate.

By turning a detractor into a neutral, you’re merely silencing the negative voice, not adding a positive one. That’s why, counterintuitive as it might seem, the research shows that it’s nine times more valuable to turn your neutrals into advocates.

Since they’re so vocal about their positivity, advocates actually have the power to pull other people—the friends and family who trust their opinions—to their side. Or rather, your side. So you don’t need to rid your schools of all negativity; you just need enough advocates to pull the conversation toward positivity.

The Zappos Experience In the private sector, the online shoe retailer Zappos is the gold standard for outstanding customer service. That’s why, several years ago, our CEO, Jeston George, traveled to Las Vegas to observe their company culture. Just a few hours into his trip, he witnessed an example of this famous customer care firsthand.

At first blush, it seemed like a typical customer service call: a woman needed to exchange the shoes she’d bought for an event the following day. They were the wrong color. There was just one problem, though: it was Friday, and Zappos doesn’t offer Saturday shipping. As you might expect, the service rep apologized for the inconvenience—but he didn’t stop there. He followed his Zappos training, looking for a personal connection with this caller.

Advocates don’t come from a barrage of billboards, ads, and flyers. They’re born in singular moments that make them feel seen, understood, and cared for—moments that make for stories worth telling.

Schools are rife with moments like these. Educators know better than just about anyone how to show kids they care.

But since these moments often happen randomly, you might believe you can’t control whether or not they occur—but that’s not the case. You don’t have to wait for these moments to happen; go on the offensive and make them happen.

Let’s think a little more about that Zappos story.

Sure, the opportunity to create a great moment came about randomly, but the employee’s response to the situation was anything but random.

In case you were wondering, just about any Zappos employee would have responded the way this one did, because it’s built into their company culture.

Advocates are born in singular moments that make them feel seen, understood, and cared for—moments that make for stories worth telling.

He learned that the event she would be attending was actually her son’s memorial service, and that the color of the shoes bore special significance to their relationship. Most companies would have apologized and moved on, ignoring the woman’s need. Instead, the rep bought the right shoes from a competitor and had them shipped to the caller the next day, free of charge. All Zappos asked was that she donate the first pair of shoes in her son’s name.

The most amazing thing about that story isn’t the touching act of kindness or the creative customer service. It’s the fact that a story like this will never go away. Years later, we’re still sharing it—giving the company free marketing in our magazine! Zappos created such a good moment for this customer that even we, as passive observers to the situation, tell this story over and over, in print and at conferences. Whatever money Zappos lost on that deal, they’ve almost certainly gained back thanks to the countless advocates this singular moment has created.

“We truly care about each and every individual that contacts us, and it’s our mission to provide the best solutions possible,” Zappos touts on their website. The company also encourages employees “to develop personal connections on every call.” Zappos customer service reps aren’t given a set script to follow, and they have the authority to “WOW customers to provide solutions in any other manner they deem appropriate.”

Zappos has created an environment that ensures incredible interactions will occur. That’s why their customer service is famous not just for this moment, but for hundreds of others like it.

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Planting an Advocacy Farm Think of the conversation surrounding your schools as a little plot of land. We say “little” because, realistically, the people in your community only spend so much time thinking about schools, and an even smaller amount of time talking about your district. So we have just a bit of space to work with, a little plot.

You need a farm here (think corn, not cows): a bountiful field full of positivity. But crops don’t grow unless they’re planted first. Left to its own devices, your little patch of land won’t sprout much but dirt and weeds, maybe a few random flowers.

If you want to grow advocates, you need to plant seeds: personal, intentional moments.

Of course, not every moment will result in an advocate, just as not every seed in a field will successfully grow into a plant. But by purposefully initiating those authentic moments, you’re creating a space that might eventually bear fruit: positive conversations.

Like Zappos, you can build your own advocacy farm: a system that helps you and your brand representatives intentionally create the personal connections that drive people to advocate for your schools.

#1: Connect with anyone, but not everyone.

Before we go any further, an important point: you can’t create moments for everyone in your community, and that’s okay.

Let’s take another look at Zappos. Most of their customers experience a pretty typical transaction; they buy a pair of shoes, the shoes arrive, everyone’s happy. That’s it. Their experience certainly isn’t negative, but it’s not a magical, advocacy-building moment—because it doesn’t have to be.

Zappos saves its magic for the roughly three percent of customers who call into their customer service line. But that tiny fraction of the company’s customer base has shifted the entire conversation around the brand, creating an international reputation for great service.

Moments turn into stories worth telling in part because they’re deeply personal. It’s important to keep this in mind as you strategize. If you’re talking to everyone at once, you’re probably not reaching anyone. The more individualized these moments are, the more impact they’ll have—and the better your chances of building strong advocates.

If you can’t target everyone, who should you target?

The truth is, you shouldn’t really be targeting anyone in particular—though you may be tempted to.

You probably know off the top of your head whose opinions carry the most weight in your greater community. The mayor, the chair of the chamber of commerce, church leaders, local news anchors—these people all have substantial sway over public opinion.

So it may seem logical to throw all your marketing energy into convincing these people, and only these peopl, to become your advocates. But if you only create special moments for the people with the highest social status, it’s going to seem disingenuous, and it’s not going to drive advocacy.

For example: what if, instead of an average customer, it had been Oprah calling into Zappos’ customer service line?

The story immediately becomes less impressive. Of course the service rep would bend over backwards to please Oprah—wouldn’t you?

The real story affects people so much because there’s nothing in it for Zappos. The service rep wasn’t gunning for a celebrity endorsement; he was just taking care of a real person. That’s the kind of moment that will drive advocacy.

Of course, you shouldn’t exclude your most influential community members from your efforts to build advocates, but don’t focus on them to the exclusion of others. Really, you want to scatter moments throughout every group in your community, like seeds evenly distributed in a field.

Be like Zappos: create moments for anyone, not everyone.

#2: Create meaningful, personal connections.

Think about the people that already speak up for your schools. What stories do they normally tell? Usually, they’ll point back to a meaningful moment that somehow said to them: “I know you. I hear you. I’m thinking of you.” Those personal connections, more than anything else, plant the seeds that grow into advocates.

Sometimes, personal connections turn an entire school around. In the spring of 2011, the staff of Washington, D.C.’s Stanton Elementary School were at their wits’ end. Facing ever-rising suspension and truancy rates, the school had tried everything: new teachers and administrators, new curriculum, even a campus remodel. Nothing helped until the Flamboyan Foundation, an organization focused on family engagement, stepped in.

A short assessment showed representatives from Flamboyan the root of the problem: there was a disconnect between parents and the school. Teachers thought the parents were disengaged and didn’t value education; parents thought the teachers didn’t really care about their kids. It was an all-too-familiar case of mutual mistrust.

Flamboyan’s solution? Home visits. Over the summer, teachers would visit families in their homes to chat about their kids. They wouldn’t bring any papers to sign or procedures to go through. The only goal was honest conversation. Teachers were given a prescribed set of questions, like “What has your child’s experience with school been like so far?” and “How can I help your child learn better?”

To the awe of teachers, the home visits turned Stanton around—almost miraculously. The following school year, overall performance on standardized tests climbed, too, and suspensions practically disappeared. Truancy rates dropped by 17%.

But more than that, the conversation surrounding Stanton shifted. Everyone in town was talking about the home visits, sharing their great experiences. Parents even began getting in touch with the school, wondering when they’d receive 26

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their own visits. At the next Back-to-School Night, 200 parents showed up—more than eight times the previous year’s turnout.

The personal connections that turned Stanton around began with something incredibly simple: listening. “Knowing students personally means taking the time to truly see each individual,” writes child development specialist Chip Wood in his book Yardsticks. “And a good first step is to simply observe and listen to them.” Stanton’s home visits made that crucial first step.

The connection deepens when you show your parents and families you’ve been listening. Wood suggests an exercise devised by educator Donald Graves: for each student in your class, write down one fact, something not related to school, that you’ve learned about them. (For example, you might know that Ally is taking ballet classes, or that Manoj scored a goal in his soccer game last week.) Finally, “look for moments when you can comment on or ask questions about things you know are important to [those students],” Wood says.

You could easily extend this principle to families in your district. When you have conversations with parents and community members, listen. Make a list of facts you know about that family, and when you sit down to write them a note or make a phone call, mention those details. Make sure the people in your community feel known.

Another way to show your audience you’ve been listening?

Take their concerns and suggestions into account. One can assume that Stanton’s home visits revealed problems that staff hadn’t even considered, but that parents were acutely aware of. Addressing those previously neglected problems not only improved the school itself, but bridged the divide of mistrust between teachers and families. It deepened the connection by making families feel heard.

That feeling of being seen, understood, and cared for is the sunlight that makes an everyday moment bloom into a story your audience can’t wait to share.

#3: Think systematically about how and where to connect.

A good farmer doesn’t plant her crops whenever and however she feels like it. She plants systematically, in just the right way and at just the right time of year. As you build out your advocacy farm, you need to find a systematic way to engage with community members.

For Zappos, it’s customer service calls. For Stanton Elementary School, it’s home visits. For you, it might be weekly stops at school carpool lines to chat with parents and students. Whatever you choose, you need to find a specific, repeatable action you can consistently take to connect with your community. This means you can’t wait for people to come to you; you have to go to them.

David Neeleman, founder of budget airline JetBlue, understands the importance of planting moments. While he served as the company’s CEO, he traveled on a JetBlue flight at least once a week. Once onboard, he’d personally speak to each customer, taking questions, fielding complaints, and thanking them for their business.

Neeleman’s system for planting moments was simple: once a week, have authentic conversations with customers.

He couldn’t possibly have known where the conversations would go, or who he’d meet, but he came ready to engage with whomever he found in the seats. He intentionally sought out connections.

Not every customer would be impressed by this gesture; not every conversation would be particularly meaningful.

But you can bet that quite a few of Neeleman’s thousands of conversations blossomed into vocal JetBlue advocates.

In Louisiana’s West Feliciana Parish Schools, superintendent Hollis Milton has a system of his own. Milton, who believes in “the power of a handwritten note,” writes about 50 letters per week, celebrating successes and providing support to his students, families, faculty, and staff. “It’s a labor of love,” he tells SchoolCEO. Milton doesn’t always know who will need a note at the beginning of any given week.

He observes, listens, gathers info from his staff, and seeks out opportunities to plant great moments. And from the sounds of it, many of those notes grow into something special.

“I’ll have parents come up to me and go, ‘That letter you wrote to my child meant everything to us. For you to take the time out of your busy schedule and write that spoke volumes about how much you care,’” Milton says.

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#4: Tie these moments back to the district brand.

Of course, you’re not the only person working on your advocacy farm. Every member of your district team, from the classroom up, can help you find places to plant and cultivate the seeds of advocacy. But you’re wanting to cultivate advocates for your district, not just individual schools—so you need to make sure your representatives are tying the moments they create back to the district’s overall brand.

In South Carolina’s Spartanburg School District One, Communications Director Sandra Williams has spearheaded the effort to create magic moments. Her system is pretty simple—students all over the district can fill out “Spartanburg One Successory” certificates, thanking a teacher for helping them be successful. Then, Williams snaps a picture of the student and teacher together and posts it on social media, overlaid with the student’s kind words.

voices uplifted, parents reshare the posts to their own feeds.

Friends and family of the highlighted teacher often do the same.

These instances of advocacy come about because the district planted an initial seed: a mechanism for teachers and students to encourage one another. And though they’re systematic, those moments of encouragement are genuine, heartfelt, and authentic—and everyone in the district can tell. “The kids love it,” Williams says, “and the teachers feel incredible when they hear those words.”

It’s not hard for Spartanburg to tie these heartfelt moments back to the district brand. Williams emblazons the Successory certificates with the district’s colors and logo, and each post contains the hashtag #Spart1Successory. There’s no missing the fact that these personal moments are stemming from the district.

“That has been worth its weight in gold,” Williams says.

“Just hearing those words of affirmation from peers and community members and stakeholders has been an incredible marketing tool.” Why? Because the Successory program creates those magic moments of recognition and respect so crucial in building advocacy. Seeing their kids’

Simple touches like this—a well-placed logo, a branded T-shirt sent in a gift basket, a note written on district stationary—tie the great moments parents and families experience in your individual schools back to your overall brand, cementing their support for your entire district.

The Power of Advocates

The stories go on and on. And stories, blossoming out of the personal moments you create, are the key to changing the way your community treats your schools.

As you work to plant moments throughout your community, something amazing begins to happen. Suddenly, the air is filled with stories, told by your freshly-minted advocates.

Kaitlyn’s family received a call from the district superintendent, congratulating her on her great performance in the state robotics competition. When Jamie’s father was in the hospital, the district sent a card to her family. And after the super struck up a conversation with Billy’s dad in the carpool line about a leak in the school gym, the problem was fixed before the week was out.

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Flooding your district with positive stories, told by you and by your advocates, influences not just what people say, but what decisions they make about your schools. Even if they haven’t experienced a magic moment themselves, community members who’ve been touched by a sweet story about your schools are more likely to vote yes on a bond measure, back a new policy initiative, or offer your district support.

When you consistently plant great moments in your district, you end up with more than a field full of homegrown advocates. You get the satisfaction of a great harvest: a conversation tugged toward positivity.

MARKETING 101

Brand Identity Essentials A key part of brand strength is consistency: using the same language, images, colors, and fonts over and over again throughout your marketing. This will cultivate the same unique feeling across all of your district’s marketing, which strengthens your brand.

Whether you’re in charge of two schools or 200, it can be difficult to vet everything that leaves your district’s doors. That’s why you need a proactive plan for getting your branding right: a toolkit that everyone in your schools can use as they create marketing materials.

CENTERVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Here are the essential elements you’ll need to start building a more consistent brand identity.

TIGER STRONG

File Types

Color Codes

Logo Variations

Primary Color CMYK: (100, 98, 8, 9) RGB: (0, 0, 140) HEX: #00008c

Simplified

Single Color

Secondary Color CMYK: (0, 67, 96, 0) RGB: (255, 119, 1) HEX: #ff7701

Raster Files (jpg, png, tiff)

Wordmark Only

Fonts

CENTERVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Display Font

Estricta Black Italic ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Vector Files (ai, eps, svg)

Body Copy

Raleway Regular ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

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Horizontal Version

CENTERVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT

Core Logo Files

District Motto

There are two basic kinds of file types: vectors and rasters.

You’ll need versions of both types as your core logo files.

You’ve probably already crafted your district’s vision statement. What you need now is a short, catchy version that can work as a slogan for your district. Keep it to a few words if possible—the shorter the better. Then, make sure everyone who works for your district is using that language: in their handouts, in their emails, in their everyday conversations.

Have you ever tried to enlarge an image, only to find that it gets pixelated as it expands? That problem occurs when you use a raster file instead of a vector file. Vectors—files whose extensions end in ai, eps, or svg—are built differently than rasters; they use mathematical formulas to display their images, rather than tiny colored pixels. This allows them to stretch to any size without losing image quality. You need a vector version of your logo to keep as a master file. When you need to print a large version of your logo for things like banners or signs, using a vector file will keep your logo looking clean and crisp from close up or far away.

You more than likely already have raster versions of your logo—ones with extensions like jpg, png, and tiff. Rasters have their own uses. JPEGs, for example, work great when you need to keep your file sizes small—think footers for your emails or pictures for the web. PNGs and TIFFs have the added benefit of being able to have a transparent background, but that can result in larger files.

If you’re not sure how to create these different versions of your logo, don’t worry. Hire a local graphic designer—or even check in with a tech-savvy student in your district.

Logo Variations You’ll also want to keep other versions of your logo on hand. »»

»»

Simplified version: Many schools have complex logos that won’t work when scaled down in size. But on occasion, you might need an extra small version of your logo—for example, to use as an icon on your website or app. For this purpose, you’ll need a simplified logo, something that’s still identifiable without any of the extra details.

Single color version: Several occasions call for a single color. You’ll need a black version of your logo for printing in black and white, and a white version for displaying over dark backgrounds, whether it’s the shaded corner of a photo or your school’s shade of navy blue.

Primary and Secondary Colors You probably already have set school colors—but you might not have prescribed shades of that color. There’s a big difference between navy blue and baby blue. If you don’t have a plan, you could end up with wildly different color palettes across your district.

For each of your school colors, you’ll need to identify three different color codes: your CMYK code (for print), your RGB code (for web) and your HEX code (also for web). Several online tools can help you determine the correct codes for the shade you want. Then, pick a few accent colors that work well with your major school colors—you might use them for borders, links, or other purposes. Determine specific color codes for those as well.

Fonts Fonts serve a few different purposes. First, you’ll need a display font, the showier font you use for titles and headings—think the headline of your local newspaper. You’ll also need a font for body copy: the everyday text that makes up the content of your mobile app, website, or print materials.

(For example, what you’re reading right now is body copy.)

We can’t tell you which fonts to use. For body copy, a few of our favorites are Montserrat and Raleway—both available for free through Google Fonts. These don’t just look good, but they’re also versatile, offering several different weights (light, bold, italic, etc.). For your display font, you’ll want to select something a bit more dynamic, but still clear and easy-to-read. In our example, we’re using Estricta Black Italic. No matter what, avoid hard-to-read fonts like Papyrus, or goofy-looking ones like Comic Sans.

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CrowdShift Marketing strategies from the private sector, brought together in one easy-to-use tool.

Get on the waitlist today.

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crowdshift.com

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Superintendent Q&A: Dr. Christina Kishimoto Superintendent of the Hawaii State Department of Education The Hawaiian word hā has over nine translations, one of the most prominent being “breath” or “to breathe.” If you’re having trouble pronouncing the word, exhale slowly, putting sound behind your breath. While many schools on the mainland employ values like “independence” or “success” in their mission statements, the Hawaii State Department of Education (HIDOE) uses “breath.”

Dr. Christina Kishimoto stepped into the role of state superintendent of Hawaii in 2017. She started her career in the private sector, but “didn’t find it very exciting.” After working for Connecticut’s DOE, Kishimoto eventually took the helm of Hartford Public Schools. There, she earned a reputation as an innovator, which she took with her to Gilbert Public Schools in Arizona in 2014.

Hā grounds HIDOE’s framework for innovation. The framework itself, called Nā Hopena A‘o (HĀ), pushes for a school system celebrating island culture: belonging, responsibility, well-being, excellence, Aloha, and Hawai’i—all centered around the holistic power of breath, of unity.

Kishimoto is originally from the Bronx. You can hear traces of her upbringing in her voice—she’s strong, assured.

It was her own experience in public schools, marked by teacher shortages and low school funding, that pointed Kishimoto toward equity work. And when something matters to her, she wholeheartedly commits. “Decide what is really important to you,” she advised new school leaders in an interview with the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents. “Then develop Teflon shoulders.”

While the challenges HIDOE faces, like recruitment, communication, and equity, aren’t exclusive to the islands, they’re often exacerbated by the very qualities that make Hawaii unique.

Teacher recruitment, for example, is especially pressing due to Hawaii’s high cost of living. A 2019 USA Today analysis found that the state’s lowest paid public school teachers would need to spend 70% of their salary to afford the median rent in Hawaii—and that’s before adjusting for income tax.

The structure of HIDOE also deviates from what’s typical of state DOEs on the mainland. The nation’s 50th state is technically only served by one district. Hawaii’s 256 schools are split into 15 complexes, served by complex area superintendents. These superintendents report to the state superintendent, who is responsible for the welfare of over 180,000 students.

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In Hawaii, Kishimoto focuses her energy toward school design. As described by HIDOE, school design encourages leaders to purposefully think through students’ educational experience in terms of engagement, ensuring that every student receives an innovative, hands-on education.

We recently sat down with the state’s lead educator to talk school design, teacher recruitment, equity, and the promise of public education in Hawaii.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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How have you navigated coming in as an outsider to Hawaii?

I feel like I’m home. That’s because of my own upbringing as part of a very diverse community in the Bronx. My family is also from Puerto Rico, which has an island culture and this history of being treated as an underclass nation. It’s a community whose history is little-understood in terms of its relationship to the United States.

I came into an island culture here in Hawaii, where language, culture, and individuals’ contributions to the community are celebrated. That’s not to say that there aren’t ever questions about whether anyone is treated differently, but this is a community that very purposefully tries to apply that aloha spirit to embrace people and to embrace their individuality.

To me, that was really exciting.

Couching our school design work on the concept of place, the concept of Hawaii, and the values of Nā Hopena A‘o (HĀ) has provided this rich, welcoming environment. This is a community that has embraced me in a powerful way, giving me voice to be a successful leader.

256 public schools 36 charter schools

179,698 students 11,013 teachers

Median price of a home on the islands: $614,000*

What prepared you to step into a role with so much focus on recruitment?

Hartford was the second poorest city per capita in the second richest state per capita. There were 169 school districts in a tiny state, which provided lots of teaching options—so Hartford wasn’t most teachers’ first choice.

8 main islands with up to 330 miles between schools

In the Hawaii State Department of Education, we market ourselves as an employer of first choice. We ask: What does it mean to be a HIDOE employee? What does ohana [family] look like here when you join the school system? What’s our commitment to you as a valued employee?

Our traditional higher ed preparation programs bring in about 600 new teachers a year. HIDOE needs about 1,300 teachers per year, and that doesn’t include the number that the private and charter schools need. We’re certainly not producing enough teachers in-state.

So we’ve hired a special ed teacher recruiter. We are doing recruitment on the mainland. We’re doing recruitment overseas. We are now doing recruitment of retired military.

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But we’re also remarketing ourselves as a work community that you’d want to be a part of—as a place that’s on the cutting edge of innovation and is focused on the purpose and power of public education. That’s creating a momentum that I didn’t see when I came in, and I think we are using approaches now to sell ourselves very differently, as an employer that’s going to impact Hawaii.

That’s difficult in an environment where there’s a union that has been advocating for increased pay for all teachers.

While we want that, we also know that we have to produce proof points. By providing significant differential pay for special education teachers, we could show the legislature and our public that increasing pay results in real outcomes.

What incentives do you offer potential teachers?

How do you connect with teachers across islands?

We’re trying to change our control over some things that have previously not been in our control. For example, we are advocating for things like increased pay and affordable housing for teachers.

On a weekly basis, I am on the road or on a plane visiting other islands. I am in schools constantly. We have just under 260 schools, and I’ve already gone on visits to about two-thirds of them in less than two years.

While we’re working on that, we’ve put in place a guaranteed two-year mentoring program for new teachers. We heard they needed more support within their first two years, so we’ve had veteran educators design that program.

We also increased the pay for our mentors.

I visit with teachers, and I work with principals to pull out a team of students that represent a cross section of each school. We talk about what they want to see in school design, what they want to see on their specific campus, and what they are aspiring toward in the future.

Additionally, we’re also piloting differentiated pay for our most difficult-to-fill positions: special education roles.

Special education teachers have additional demands on them. It’s a different role, so I am pushing for differential pay.

I take that, and I do a weekly brief to my internal community.

Iwrite a newsletter once a week, basically a one-pager, highlighting either a school visit or a best practice that I’ve seen. Basically, it’s my communication to my employees saying, “This is what I’m thinking or seeing or finding,” and asking them to continue their good work or to help me address an area of concern.

Honolulu

Hawa

iia

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Is

la

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s

Can you tell us more about Hawaii’s focus on school design?

How do you communicate this innovation to the community?

We’ve created a school design matrix that’s organized into four quadrants. The first one is around school mission, vision, and culture. The second is around the instructional design of that school model, the third one is the infrastructure that’s needed to deliver that model successfully, and the fourth area is around student voice.

As we’re rolling out new innovations, we’re trying to change the narrative around how public education is discussed or blamed. There are amazing things happening in our schools, so we have grown our communications team. Our team initiated a communications plan that really supports this tri-level voice: what’s happening at the state level, what the complex teams are doing, and then what’s happening in terms of best practices at our schools. We also have a team that does video work for us, so we do a lot of visuals and short videos. A good amount of my time is spent with community business leaders in particular, with the legislature, and with the governor talking about our strategic approach.

Those four quadrants define school design. Principals are using these indicators to self-evaluate their schools.

They’re looking to see whether they are delivering a model that they’ve inherited, or whether they are, in fact, leading a model that they’ve designed with their school community.

The best models show real impact and alignment to student interests, community interests, and teacher engagement.

So we’ve empowered schools to revisit their designs with a specific set of indicators. We are working now on publishing about a quarter of those school design models to allow other schools to see this work.

How do you empower individual schools and teachers?

I moved more than three-quarters of professional development funds from the hands of my state team to the hands of principals. That’s about $13 million pushed from the state to the school level in order to empower schools to provide teacher capacity building based on their school models.

We also rolled out an innovation grant where teachers, rather than schools, could directly apply to a million-dollar fund, allowing them as teacher teams to try some innovation pilots in their classrooms, in their schools, or in partnership with their communities. That grant only has two requirements: It has to have at least two or more teachers working within or across schools, and it has to have a component that includes student voice proactively, meaning students are either designing that innovation themselves or with teachers. So the idea is really to create more voice and power between teachers and students working together around that teaching and learning design.

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We’ve been very focused on three strategies. What that helps us do is structure all of our conversations around those three themes. One is school design, the second is student voice, and the third is teacher collaboration.

Soon we’re going to be going into our new 10-year strategic plan, and the approach we’re using is to create a toolkit on our webpage. We’ve been announcing that toolkit, letting anyone in the community engage with it and provide us feedback on this new strategic plan. That’s engaging the community in a very proactive way.

How do you make communication a priority across the state?

We want to get everyone in the school system to own communications. It’s been very hands-on, very much about modeling how to get messaging out. We need every school doing that work; we need every school owning their website; we need every school owning their communication with their community.

What we did at the state level is provide some of the common language to talk about equity, excellence, access, and innovation. So they’re constantly hearing me say it; they’re hearing it at board meetings. When I visit schools, my questions to teachers and students use that common language.

I meet with our complex area superintendents every other week, and we’re renorming and identifying the ways we’re getting our message out.

I also make myself available to the media, whether it’s to address a difficult issue or to take advantage of a marketing opportunity. It’s important for superintendents to be available to the media with strong messaging around the non-negotiables like equity, access, and the need to close achievement gaps. At the same time, a superintendent needs to have talking points about a forward-moving vision.

We’ve couched everything under the theme of the power and promise of public education in Hawaii.

Now, when I go to meetings with the local media, they’re using that common language. I have business leaders using that language; I have the governor using that language. The superintendent has to be a very visible leader in his or her community and a mouthpiece both for our challenges and for our vision of excellence.

How are you seeing this work impact students?

I was recently at an event organized by a student leadership organization. One young lady stood up and, in her speech, said that someone needed to let the superintendent of education know that she was going to be taking her job.

One of my favorite quotes is, “People pass casually through our lives, when trumpets should blast.” And I’m constantly telling teachers, “You pass casually through a lot of students’ lives, and you don’t realize that trumpets are blasting for them. You’re having a tremendous impact on them in ways that you might never see. You’re doing tremendous, life-changing work.”

That’s what I’m touched by when I visit classrooms: kids so proudly talking about the teachers that make a difference in their lives, that bring hope to them. Especially in a world right now where there’s so much chaos for our young people—so much stress and so much stuff happening in terms of the public discourse.

It’s certainly confusing for us as adults, but for our young people, I do worry if they have enough places where they can talk about what they’re understanding, what they’re seeing, what their fears are. And when they talk about it from a place of hope and a place of change that they want to lead, that’s absolutely moving, and that’s what gets us to work everyday. That’s certainly what gets me excited about this work.

She didn’t realize I was in the audience, and they introduced her to me. It was really touching—having that young lady respond awestruck, a little embarrassed, like she had met some famous person. Here I am constantly thinking: How do we market ourselves differently? How do we change the narrative? How do we get the respect that public education deserves? And here’s this young lady just admiring the position and feeling like she’s met a difference maker.

There’s a lot of hope in our community around these future leaders. And we hear it all the time. We hear young people share their stories and aspirations—and the teachers that made a difference in their lives.

SUMMER 2019 / SchoolCEO

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In Case You Missed It Highlights from Issues 1-3

Marketing has become an essential part of

Cyber schools have some of the lowest

district administrators’ jobs. Whether your

performance ratings nationwide, yet they’re

goal is attracting and retaining students,

pulling in students. In “The Cyber School

improving your relationship with the community,

Marketing Playbook,” we’ll look at each

or recruiting teachers, marketing helps create a

aspect of their marketing, showing you

healthy district. Think of it as part of your work

what they do well, where they’re lacking,

as an educator: teaching your community how

and which ideas you can steal.

to think about your schools. Our goal is to teach you the basics of marketing so that it doesn’t

Finally, in the largest survey of its kind, 1,000

get in the way of your other work in the district.

millennial teachers across the nation answered the question: “What Do Millennial Teachers

If you’re confused about school marketing as a

Want?” We’ll share their answers and show

whole, check out “What is Marketing, Anyway?”

you how to better recruit this new generation.

We’ll answer basic but common questions, like: What’s a brand? What’s a marketing campaign?

How do I get people to stop saying negative things about my district on social media?

To freshen up your social media, sweep through “The Disconnect.” SchoolCEO’s research finds three key ways school districts are lagging behind the private sector when it comes to social media and offers ideas for how schools can improve.

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Catch up on all of the previous SchoolCEO articles online at: www.schoolceo.com

The Disconnect: Schools aren’t getting results from social media, which could be an opportunity for you.

S

ocial media is often described as a silver bullet for community engagement. The narrative painted for school administrators in conferences, news articles, blog posts, and professional development sessions is that social media can build a school’s brand and transform their relationship with the community. The reality is that school leaders were hired to run schools, not social media accounts. Making the transition onto Twitter and Facebook can be awkward at best, especially when running a Facebook page pulls administrators away from time in schools.

The Disconnect Schools have the opportunity to excel on social media.

Our research shows the disconnect between marketing best practices and schools’ social media—with ideas for closing the gap.

As marketers from the private sector, we see how businesses across industries are using social media to win and retain customers. New companies that scale quickly often do so by leveraging social media platforms to their advantage; it’s one of the most affordable ways to engage with a large audience. It seemed obvious that schools that are savvy enough to be on social would also be good at marketing themselves to parents. We set out to see just how big of an impact social media is making in school districts.

SchoolCEO Study

What Do Millennial Teachers Want?

In the largest study of its kind, randomly selected K-12 teach 1981 and 1996. More than 1,00 response—a statistically sign estimated 1.2 million millennia

What Do Millennial Teachers Want?

M

illennials are the largest generation in the so we wanted to learn more about the n pool as a market. Hiring isn’t just about v applicants; part of the process is to sell the job to g And in any sales effort, marketers need to figure ou about their audience. What features do consumer about in a product or service? What is their proces making purchasing decisions?

Roy Vaughn

We surveyed more than 1,000 millennial teachers, giving you a window into their job searches and showing you the best ways to recruit this new generation of educators.

Art Teacher

Nike, for example, knows what marathoners want running shoe, whether it be support, lift, or style. Bu than creating a great product, they also figure out average marathoner looks for information. Are run shopping online or in stores? Do they ask other ru before buying their shoes? Once Nike understand market’s purchasing process, they can create a str that speaks directly to runners’ needs, putting thei in front of consumers at key moments.

In the same vein, we wanted to know more about m teachers’ job searches. Our research sought to an questions: what are millennial teachers looking for and what is their decision-making process?

We know that teacher recruitment is fundamentall changing. A peek into our research shows us that teachers are researching districts online before ap just like millennial employees in the private sector, teachers’ focus in the job has shifted.

We’ll show you what teachers are looking for in a jo break down their decision-making process. With t information in hand, school leaders can target teac on the channels they use most

The Cyber School Marketing Playbook Professional marketers are spending millions in the education space. Find out their strategy— from start to finish.

The Cyber School Marketing Playbook

The private sector holds ideas and strategies that have been battle-tested for decades. With experience building brands and engaging audiences, professional marketers have developed ways to improve any marketing initiative.

Private sector strategies are geared towards selling goods and services that will make a profit. However, an education is not a consumer product; it’s an experience, a public good.

The marketing of cyber schools, especially that of K12 Inc. and Connections Academy, offers unique insights into marketing an educational experience. They have seasoned digital marketing teams spending millions of dollars to attract students, and they are directly competing with public school leaders.

Cyber schools are expert marketers. We’ll dissect their marketing strategies from start to finish, giving you tips and ideas along the way.

To show you how they do it, we’ve conducted a variety of studies to understand their playbook, with insights into their best ideas. Whether or not you're competing for students, there's something to be learned from the strategies employed by cyber management companies.

WINTER 2019

SchoolCEO

What is Marketing, Anyway?

What is Marketing, Anyway?

Ten questions about marketing school leaders might be too embarrassed to ask

Have a few marketing questions you’re too embarrassed to ask? We’ve built an introduction to school marketing.

CAMPAIGNS

MESSAGING

SOCIAL MEDIA

BRANDING

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SUMMER 2019 / SchoolCEO

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Seeking Seniors

Marketing to your district’s oldest stakeholders

Kaplan’s recommended height for a kindergartener’s desk is 20 to 23 inches—less than two feet off the ground. If you’ve ever tried to squeeze into one of these plastic desks, you understand that schools were designed for a younger group of stakeholders—not older adults.

This link is stronger when there’s a racial mismatch. “The more minority students there are in the community relative to the elderly, the less elderly people want to support public schools,” Figlio tells SchoolCEO.

Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township in west But as many administrators know, the older population Indianapolis felt this problem firsthand. As the they prepared remains a key part of a district’s success—because seniors to pass a property tax referendum in 2015, they realized vote. In 2016, researchers from Portland State University that around 75% of their community didn’t have kids in the found that the median age of voters in local elections was district. What’s more, while Wayne’s student population was 57. The Census Bureau projects diversifying, the older population that by 2030, one in five U.S. remained relatively homogeneous.

Seniors aren’t a demographic to residents will be of retirement age. be trivialized or pushed into a box.

For the first time in U.S. history, As a response, the district focused seniors are expected to outnumber They’re vibrant. their attention on older adults.

K-12 students.

“We’ve deeply engaged our senior Unfortunately, older adults don’t poll well when it comes to school funding. David Figlio, Dean of the Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy, found that a higher percentage of older adults in a community is linked with less locally raised revenue for public schools.

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citizen communities,” said Superintendent Jeff Butts, Indiana’s Superintendent of the Year and finalist for AASA’s 2019 Superintendent of the Year. Building connections with the older community has made the district stronger: through reading initiatives, mentorship, and additional classroom support. Wayne Township not only passed their 2015 referendum, but went on to pass an additional referendum in 2019.

Wayne isn’t the only district seeing success. In Brenham, Texas, a small town home to Blue Bell Creameries, schools value their large elderly community. About one in every five adults in Brenham is a senior citizen. Engaging this segment of the population is no small task, but the district gladly accepts the challenge. Older adults are consistently on campus, mentoring students and assisting in the classroom.

Both Wayne and Brenham are also using print, mail, radio, and digital channels to share positive stories about their schools. But Mary Lang, Wayne’s Director of Communication, notes that the most fruitful marketing is about more than just sending out information. “It’s about really connecting,” she says. “In order to engage the population of senior citizens in our district, we felt that we needed to be more personal about it, more intentional, and more tangible.”

Lang hits on something key here. Today’s older adults­ —true to the norm—value connection, but they’re also staying active longer. Current seniors not only think about aging differently, they have the energy to do something about it. It’s a change that marketers in the private sector are picking up on—and one that matters when trying to reach older adults.

3% Only 3% of U.S. seniors live in nursing homes* *Data from the 2010 U.S. Census

1 in 5

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What's Old is New Even though the oldest Baby Boomers are almost a decade into retirement, nursing homes are going out of business.

The New York Times reported that nationally, 200 to 300 nursing homes are closing each year, while the number of older adults is increasing by the millions.

And today’s elderly aren’t just acting younger; they feel younger. According to Pew Research, 61% of Boomers feel nine years younger than their given age. Their energy is being put to good use; the Financial Times noted a boom in the adventure travel industry for an older demographic, and the Kauffman Foundation reported that adults over 65 start more businesses than those who are under 25. Across the country, seniors are dreaming big for retirement.

To marketers, this change matters. “People are aging differently; that’s what we’ve come to realize,” says Rebecca Scanlan, Senior Communications Consultant at Silvernest, a trendy home-sharing site that helps older adults find roommates. “This generation is still very vibrant, and they want to have their independence,” Scanlan says.

Silvernest’s communications, in turn, are geared toward forward-thinking seniors. “We don’t want to put them in a box,” she says.

Without recognizing seniors’ vibrancy, advertisers risk excluding the very audience they hope to target. Karina Tama-Rutigliano, a Forbes contributor and digital marketing consultant with almost a decade of experience marketing to the elderly, uses photos of people 10 to 15 years younger than her target group. Why? Older adults don’t recognize themselves in photos of their peers; they see themselves as younger than their given age. “Enhance their abilities,” she told SchoolCEO. Just like the community at large, seniors like to have fun.

According to Tama-Rutigliano, this demographic focuses on health, on maintaining their independence, and on security.

Of course, finance plays into all of these issues, underwriting the narrative of many retirees.

A few districts have taken note. EdWeek reported that Allegheny Valley, a small district in Pennsylvania with a high percentage of older residents, pushes out a message of conservation and cost savings. The district discovered that their senior population values financial responsibility, so the administration not only acts frugally, but they communicate those choices to their greater community.

But how do districts­—or marketers in any sector—reach seniors with their messaging? When it comes to modes of communication, the modern senior is keeping advertisers busy. While print is commonly used to reach older generations, a 2017 report from Pew Research shows a rise in technology use. Younger, well-educated, and affluent seniors plug in as often as people younger than 65. However, as seniors get older, the numbers taper off. Older, less educated, and less affluent populations use technology at especially low rates; only 28% of seniors over age 80 have home broadband internet.

When we asked Silvernest which communication channels they use to target seniors, they had a hard time narrowing them down. “We do it all,” says Scanlan. The company markets digitally, attends conferences on aging, and distributes flyers in target communities.

But just like Brenham ISD and Wayne Township, Scanlan particularly emphasizes the importance of in-person events.

“Face-to-face is important,” she says. “We find that some of our audience is more into community events, more willing to come out.” Meeting in person builds ties across generations.

Approximately

47,000,000 seniors live in the United States *

*Data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2013-2017 Estimate

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The Missing Piece When we ask school leaders how they cope with the job on difficult days, the answer is almost always the same: they visit classrooms. Students have a magical effect on adults. Of course, it’s not magic; it’s science.

Developmental psychology shows us that older adults become hyper-focused on connection. While mind and memory fade, emotional processing actually increases in older adults, according to a 2016 study from Harvard Medical School.

Of course, aging can still be isolating. Loss of mobility and available transportation inevitably narrows older adults’ social circles. According to a 2012 study from the University College of London, the resulting loneliness can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, infectious illness, even cognitive deterioration.

Connection between kids and older adults, then, becomes a powerful thing. When Iowa State University analyzed a range of studies on intergenerational programming, the results were overwhelmingly positive. Spending time with kids can prevent cognitive decline, improve self esteem, and lower the risk of depressive symptoms.

Across the country in Wayne Township, Mary Lang notes two key reasons her district engages seniors. “One is that it’s the smart thing to do,” she admits, noting the demographic’s sway at the polls. “It’s also the right thing to do,” she adds.

“It’s been really meaningful to watch the evolution of increased connections.”

Those connections are part of community building, of building strong schools. Reaching seniors goes beyond politics; “it’s just right on every level,” says Lang.

“Two demographics — children in need of support and adults with the time and inclination to step into roles that provide it — fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,” reports Stanford’s Center on Longevity.

“ 61%

of Baby Boomers feel nine years younger than their given age

We want to make sure that seniors are involved in what we’re doing, and that they can see their tax dollars hard at work for ensuring a bright future for our community.

”

Jessica Johnston Communications Director Brenham ISD, TX

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Bring the community onto campus Teachers and staff see the great things happening in your district; they witness the third grader holding the door for her class, or the seventh grader returning from a win at the state spelling bee. When seniors step onto campus, they get to interact with students firsthand.

They see their support building stronger schools and, in turn, stronger communities.

Create a VIP Experience The first metal credit card, the sleek black Centurion Card from American Express, was originally nothing more than a myth. But when a rumor began circulating, saying that the company had created an invitation-only credit card with high rewards, American Express decided to cash in.

In response to the buzz, they produced a thick black card with a high annual fee and unmatched rewards.

The move was perfect marketing. In America, we’ve come to associate metal, platinum, and black cards with status and exclusivity. Customers are rewarded for their purchases— and even given a physical status symbol—because they are incredibly important to the company. The strongest loyalty programs, in turn, prove their appreciation for their VIPs. Think this strategy can’t apply to schools? Think again. Like many districts across the country, Wayne Township has created a VIP program, complete with ID cards, inviting seniors to attend sports and arts events free of charge.

“It’s so easy for us to forget about our seniors,” says Lang.

“Everything that we’re doing is to help them realize that we value them.”

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The physical cards themselves make Wayne Township’s program stand out. After receiving a placeholder cardboard ID in the mail, senior citizens can snap a photo on campus to be made into a real plastic ID badge. The badges, which read “Wayne Township, VIP,” match those worn by Wayne Township’s staff, which communicates the district’s senior stakeholders' importance. According to Butts, some older adults don’t even use the program regularly, but they love making their VIP cards. “It’s become something our senior community really enjoys,” he says.

Spartanburg School District One in South Carolina shows appreciation by inviting retired employees on campus for an annual luncheon. But that’s not all; each guest is sent home with a mint plant from the district’s horticultural classes, thanking them for their “commitMINT” to Spartanburg One. Ideally, this little gift serves as a talking point for retirees.

“They talk to their friends, who may or may not have grandchildren in the district. Word of mouth is huge,” says Sandra Williams, Chief Communications Officer. “We work very hard to help them understand the importance of public education, even if they don’t feel like they’ve got skin in the game, because they do.”

Photo provided by MSD of Wayne Township

Assemble a Senior Staff Back at Brenham, Director of Communications Jessica Johnston is adamant about getting older adults involved in the educational process. “I don’t care if you’re big, small, or in-between, there are people in our communities who want to be involved, but we just have to ask,” she says. “There are opportunities out there ripe for the picking.”

This Texas district depends on volunteer contributions to schools as a means to promote student well-being.

Brenham’s Bluebonnet Garden Club pulls weeds with elementary students to keep Brenham’s bluebonnets blooming. Pre-K students sit for a vision screening from the Lions Club, and the ministerial alliance greets elementary students with high-fives on the first day of school. While these programs aren’t exclusive to senior citizens, many attract retirees.

What’s more, helping students seems to impact seniors as much as kids. Johnston describes the smiles on seniors’ faces as they work with students—the change in older adults’ demeanors after they’ve spent a day on campus.

Wayne Township leverages this positive impact to recruit additional volunteers for the district’s reading mentorship program. Helping One Student To Succeed (HOSTS)

currently draws in over 1,000 volunteers—mostly older adults, Lang tells us—through its great reputation in the community. The district is also intentional about recruitment.

“The continual recruitment and recognition of volunteers is really helpful,” says Lang. A closer look shows the district’s systematic tactics for converting community members into volunteers—and it starts with recognizing their impact.

Every year, the district thanks volunteers from the HOSTS program with an annual breakfast with volunteers’ mentees.

Wayne Township goes the extra mile, finding ways to create impactful moments for volunteers. One of the program’s alumni, for example, came back to his elementary school to speak at a HOSTS breakfast. Little did he know, the district had invited his former mentors, who traveled hundreds of miles to see their mentee speak.

The district shares these moments of transformation in written and video testimonials. “The experience has been very rewarding,” writes a HOSTS mentor on the district’s website. “It is wonderful to watch the growth of each student as they gain confidence in their reading skills and begin to enjoy the worlds that open up to them through literature.”

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Celebrate Community on Campus Superintendent Nathan McCann turned to his student advisory committee for ideas on how to engage the broader community at Ridgefield School District in Washington. As a response, students designed an annual community carnival complete with vendors, food, and crafts. Experience Ridgefield, as they called it, celebrates the wonderful qualities of the broader town of Ridgefield. The message is clear: the district values their community’s support.

“Students wanted to incorporate the things they love about the community,” Carolyn Enos, the district’s communications specialist, tells SchoolCEO. “The community is very tight-knit, and when you go to one of these events, you really feel the community spirit.”

Everyone is welcome, whether or not they have kids in the district. Of course, this creates an opportunity to invite senior citizens onto campus. During the festival, attendees mingle over snacks and drinks, getting to know more about one another as well as the district.

Over the years, Experience Ridgefield has grown in size.

The event is now in its fourth year, attracting more and more annual attendees. “The school district is a very integral part of the community,” says Enos. “Whenever attendees join us for an Experience Ridgefield event, they think of the district and the part we played in bringing the community together.”

Design an Intergenerational Curriculum Back in Indianapolis, Wayne Township takes every available opportunity to partner with retirement communities.

Each school partners with one of the five major senior citizen communities in the district, then develops monthly points of connection. These touchpoints pay off for students, teachers, and older adults.

After their manicures, retirees will walk over to the culinary arts classroom for lunch. “It’s a day of pampering,” says Lang. While seniors relax on campus, students learn to interact with older customers. Across campus, seniors can volunteer to have their blood pressure read by students interested in health care.

For students, learning from and about senior citizens offers social lessons on service and aging, hands-on experience working with seniors, and even expanded support structures. The benefits for seniors are just as critical.

“Even though you are part of a senior living community, there are still times when it’s an isolating experience,” says Lang. “Families aren’t right there all the time,” she notes, which makes community support all the more important.

Lang especially emphasizes the impact of a program called “Cyber Seniors.” During class, high school technology students teach seniors how to use video messaging services like FaceTime to connect with their families.

“Our kids get an awful lot out of helping seniors make those connections,” says Lang. “It brings something wonderful out in students when they connect with an older population.”

In February, students paste construction paper hearts onto glittered Valentine’s cards for the seniors. Every resident opens a handmade card, crafted by a Wayne Township student, on February 14th. Sometimes students travel to senior communities to sing or perform; often, seniors visit campus.

As a partnership with the district’s technical school, older adults travel onto campus to get their hair and nails done by students in the district’s cosmetology program.

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Some of Wayne Township’s programs involve simply learning seniors’ stories. “A lot of the schools will actually have a classroom that adopts a senior citizen,” Butts explains.

The class communicates with the resident, learning more about their life. Residents, in turn, receive the opportunity to share their stories with an eager audience. Sometimes the partnership teaches students more about the aging process, especially important life lessons in illness and recovery. “We get to have those conversations,” says Butts.

Photos provided by Brenham ISD

An intergenerational curriculum lets seniors experience the great things happening in their district firsthand.

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Bring campus to the community On-campus events capture the attention of community members who are already somewhat invested in the district.

They know where to find you, and they’re interested in learning more. Reaching your entire community, however, means moving beyond your district, sharing positive student stories throughout the community.

“

”

The best way to market yourself is to be visible and to be engaged in the community.

Dr. Jeff Butts Superintendent MSD of Wayne Township, IN

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Reaching the broader senior community, however, poses a challenge to marketers. Seniors receive information across a wide variety of channels. While we know that many older adults are engaged with the local news, Pew Research shows that these stakeholders are also on social media.

Nearly 70% of people aged 50-64 are on Facebook, which drops to around 46% for those 65 and older. An even higher percentage are on YouTube: around 70% of those 50-64 scroll through videos, which drops to 38% for participants over 65. Clearly, social is important, but relying solely on social platforms means excluding almost a third of older adults.

Back in Wayne Township, Butts prioritizes in-person interactions. “We spend a lot of time—specifically me—going to community events, neighborhood association meetings, churches—being out there, being visible. We make sure we get our name in front of people,” he says.

The district has teamed up with over 250 “Giant Partners” in the community, from churches to bakeries to insurance groups. Sponsors support the school, posting #WeAreWayne stickers in their storefronts. In short, they target key members of their community while continuously sharing positive stories all over the city.

Leverage Traditional Media While face-to-face interaction is important, neither Wayne Township nor Brenham is neglecting traditional media, like printed newsletters or radio features. After all, the News Media Alliance shows that the median age of newspaper readers is still about 54, which rises to 55 for local evening news stations.

Every six weeks, Brenham ISD administrators create an insert for the local newspaper that includes updates from each campus. Once a week, a Brenham ISD student publishes an article in the local paper. “Students from our elementary school are talking about projects that they’re doing in their social studies class,” says Johnston. “Our kids at the junior high might talk about testing programs.”

Because of Brenham’s great relationship with the press, Johnston says they also reach out about timely topics with the schools.

Wayne Township makes use of mail by delivering postcard updates to the entire community—whether or not individual households have students in the district. On the front of the card, they include a photo promoting a district success, like the unveiling of their solar farm. On the back, there’s a short description of the photo. They keep the story short to

capture their audience’s attention, and focus messaging on key moments throughout the year. “We try to be strategic about the time of year and the messaging that we’re sending,” said Butts, mentioning the graduation postcard the district mailed out at the end of June.

And the district doesn’t forget retirement communities, which aren’t included in the bulk mailing system. Lang personally delivers stacks of postcards to each building.

Working with the managers of retirement homes, they ensure that a postcard is placed in every senior’s mailbox.

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The median age of newspaper readers

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The median age of local evening news viewers SUMMER 2019 / SchoolCEO

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Show Up At Brenham ISD, Johnston’s team spreads out across town to gain traction in the community. “We are beating the pavement,” she says. “We work with local churches, we speak at the chamber of commerce, at Rotary Clubs.

Anywhere I can share what we’re doing in Brenham ISD and invite all generations of stakeholders to get involved— I am there!”

Lots of community groups like Lions Clubs, Rotary Clubs, and other volunteer organizations tend to attract retirees, who often have availability throughout the day. Of course, each community is different. The point is to identify gathering places for your community’s older demographic— then show up.

It’s not just administration. Students from Brenham volunteer in the community, helping the senior population while simultaneously building up the district’s reputation.

Last year, students from construction technology classes volunteered to build a shed to house the local senior center's golf cart. They’ve been working with the center

for years, helping with various maintenance projects. In turn, the relationship between the district and the senior center has flourished. Seniors have even engaged in volunteer activities with students.

A few years ago, one of Brenham’s high school woodworking classes heard about an initiative to make “lily pads.”

These wooden seats, shaped like leaves, attach to the bottom of IV stands to provide a place to rest for children battling terminal illness. Kids can sit on these seats or use them like skateboards as they walk from room to room.

The story got picked up by local media. When residents at the senior center caught wind of the idea, they offered to help paint some of the lily pads. The teacher, Mr. Thiel, took half of the pads to the senior center to paint. Instead of plain wood, pads were decorated with bumblebees or pictures of Snoopy. The project eventually garnered statewide attention for the district, further reinforcing their message of a unified community.

Talk Community True inclusivity starts at the district’s core: its mission and vision statement. Both Wayne Township and Brenham ISD emphasize community in their core messaging.

“We don’t have Brenham Schools in our themes,” says Johnston. “It truly is about more than just what we’re doing in our schools. It’s about making sure that our whole community is engaged in this process.”

Brenham ISD creates themes that unify schools and their communities. A few years ago, their theme was “One Brenham, Better Together.” Last year it was “Brenham, United.”

Wayne Township developed a hashtag to empower every stakeholder. “#WeAreWayne really brings our school community together,” says Butts. “It helps people to feel like this is their district; they are a part of this, and our success is dependent on them. Whether they are a teacher, a bus driver, a custodian, a child nutrition worker—they’re all a part of the success of our children.”

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The hashtag has taken hold, too; Butts mentions with a laugh that students think it’s been around for fifty years.

Political candidates use #WeAreWayne on their signage; the chamber of commerce and economic development commissions use the hashtag in their own marketing. #WeAreWayne links the community to their schools.

At its core, marketing to older adults is creating community-driven schools. While many districts engage older adults in their community, they miss the opportunity to maximize the marketing potential of those engagements.

Each connection built with an older resident is a story. As your district creates more stories, give the extra 10%: capture photos, write down quotes, and follow up with seniors.

Then, when your district vets for a bond, reach into your collection of stories to share those moments of connection.

What a fun time @WayneBranch with students and families enjoying lunch! Our guest reader was the one & only ! Thank you @giantsnutrition for the great work you do for kids every day! #WeAreWayne

#WeAreWayne unites the township’s larger community.

We Are Wayne @WayneTwpSchools Jun 25 More accolades for Ben Davis Ninth Grade Center Principal Steve Samuel. He’s the @INPrincipals High School Principal of the Year for Marion County (District 7). Our Board of Education recognized Mr. Samuel at its working session Monday evening. #wearewayne @WayneTwpSuper

Dr. Jeff Butts @WayneTwpSuper Jun 22 The @WayneTwpEdFound summer production of Tarzan the Musical was amazing. There are five more chances to see the show this summer!! #wearewayne

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Superintendent Perspectives

Bringing you ideas from leading superintendents

Selling SEL How school leaders can build community support for new forms of teaching and learning

As a young social studies teacher, I thought my primary responsibility was to be a strong instructor—to bring lessons about history to life for my students, catering to their unique learning styles. Of course, this wasn’t necessarily wrong.

But at the time I didn’t fully understand my responsibility to students’ social and emotional growth. Not, that is, until one freshman student—we’ll call him Michael—joined my class.

Michael refused to engage. I thought I might have to fail him; it seemed impossible to crack the puzzle of his disengagement. But there was something in Michael that prompted me to reach him on a personal level before addressing his grades. I knew his backstory: challenging external factors, little support outside of school, and an academic and behavioral reputation that haunted him.

So we started meeting regularly before school for conversations, which turned into study sessions. I made sure to praise him and say “hello” when I saw him in the hallways.

Then, I encouraged my colleagues to soften their approach with him, show more compassion. Michael didn’t finish his homework? Stop giving him zeros, and let him complete the assignments with me. It wasn’t magic—in truth, it’s what savvy educators do everyday. It’s recognizing that our students need more than an education; they need to be cared for. Michael ended the year strong—not great, but far better than he began. I, admittedly, learned far more.

I learned that caring matters.

Guest Writer: Dr. Joseph Ricca Superintendent of White Plains Public Schools, NY

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Social-emotional learning, or SEL, is the idea that an education should go beyond academics. In today’s world, social skills and emotional development aren’t ancillary to a great education; they’re a key part of it. Sometimes, getting started with SEL means reevaluating our idea of a successful graduate.

“In today’s world, social skills and emotional development aren’t ancillary to a great education; they’re a key part of it.”

Most districts are already implementing SEL ideology.

Community service projects fall under the umbrella of SEL, as does increasing access for students with disabilities, working towards greater equity, or teaching lessons in character building.

But the implementation process goes beyond programming; communicating the value of social and emotional learning is a key part of the process. It’s changing the culture of the district; it’s selling SEL.

In my first superintendency at East Hanover Township School District (EHTSD), a good 10 years after meeting Michael, I got to see the value of SEL from another angle.

As I was scanning students’ test scores, trying to make sense of the data, I realized something puzzling. By only looking at a student’s socio-economic status or at issues in their home life, I could nearly guess a student’s score.

We were chasing test scores when we should have been focusing on kids. I did some research and found that—when considering socio-economic factors—the bulk of districts are separated by mere percentage points. We were getting caught up in scores, but successful graduates need “soft skills” like empathy and compassion to navigate an increasingly interconnected world. Something is broken in the system of education, not in the students.

At East Hanover, our answer was SEL. And I don’t just mean creating new programs addressing social and emotional learning, I mean changing the culture of the district to value so-called “soft skills.” We worked on this rebranding at East Hanover, then I took the momentum to Elmsford Union Free School District (EUFSD) in New York. I’ve since landed in White Plains City School District (WPCSD), not far from Elmsford. In each of the three districts I’ve served, we’ve put SEL at the forefront of our work. While the programs changed per district, the process of promoting SEL became somewhat of a formula built around four key lessons.

Here are four lessons I’ve gathered over the years: 1

2

3

4

Learn from stakeholders.

Give the community ownership.

Rebrand with SEL in mind.

Celebrate your successes.

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1

Learn from stakeholders.

Before tweeting about the glories of SEL, before creating a single program, create a space to learn from stakeholders.

At my first district, East Hanover, we started the process of implementing SEL by putting together a committee to get a sense of the social problems in the district—and possible solutions. We didn’t stop at students and teachers; we included community partners, retirees, and elected officials.

At the time, bullying was a hot button issue at East Hanover.

The problem surfaced quickly in our meetings, and the committee went to work brainstorming solutions that would ignite the community. Together we came up with a lesson, our main messaging, that fell under the umbrella of SEL: pay attention to students’ emotional lives.

Too often, parents felt they were overreacting when they worried about their child’s lack of interest in school or fear of going to class. As a community, we needed to pay more attention to our students. We wanted our parents, guardians, and students to know we were ready to listen and work with them as issues arose. A “boys will be boys” or “girls will be girls” attitude was hurting students’ development.

We then hit the ground running to spread our messaging, all the while learning from parents and stakeholders.

Our communications campaign was split into several parts.

First, we held coffee meetings with parents, who often shared their own experiences with bullying, or raised concerns or ideas. And we didn’t just ask parents to come to us; we met them at the library or at PTA meetings. If there was a community group willing to hear us, we were there, ready to speak—and even more ready to listen.

At East Hanover, no one would have publicly denied the importance of SEL. But that didn’t mean that the community initially bought into the idea. Some saw the work as a secondary concern, a “warm and fluffy” distraction from academics. Others didn’t understand the point. The common sentiment seemed to be, “I never had these types of lessons, and I turned out just fine!” With this logic, we would have rejected air conditioning in schools, leaving kids sweating at their desks. “I didn’t have it, so why do they need it?”

So we explained the benefits of SEL, including specific tactics to take against bullying and harassment, on social media. While instituting this more public, face-to-face campaign, we also spread our message on my personal Twitter feed as well as the district’s. Sometimes it was as simple as reposting an article supporting SEL to share our messaging with parents.

The goal was both to demystify the causes of harassment and to shine light on practical ways the community could respond.

Something I didn’t understand at the start of the campaign: this marketing and communications work is SEL. It’s increasing community ties, learning to listen, and teaching the community how to better support their children.

Focus groups provide a space to learn from key stakeholders.

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Give the community ownership.

By listening first, we’d created a diverse range of stakeholders with ownership in the initiative. When it came time to implement real programming, our community—especially our students—was ready to join in. Working with our PTA and other community partners, we increased the number of student assemblies teaching tolerance, cooperation, and self-respect—the underpinnings of any successful social fabric. We adorned our buildings with student-created posters, banners, and murals highlighting our philosophies of unity, kindness, respect, responsibility, and self-determination. We even created programming that allowed our students to make positive contributions through service projects and beautification opportunities.

Our initial focus group also helped us get our messaging out into the community. Remember the elected officials we invited to serve on our original SEL committee?

When New Jersey enacted the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights in 2011, those folks, along with law enforcement officials, were out explaining the bill’s importance to the community. Then, our district hosted the first annual Community Night of Respect. Law enforcement officials and state legislators, including then State Attorney General, Paula Dow, announced the new legislation at the event. What a special night! We were working together with all of our stakeholders to support our children, leading a conversation about kindness.

Of course, we didn’t just want to engage our most powerful community members; we also looked to folks on the edges of our district. Senior citizens, for example, are valuable to our students’ social and emotional growth.

So we started simple programs, like inviting our senior citizens to free concerts and theater events. To continue to really build community connections, we provided free transportation and arranged for student greeters to interact with our senior citizens before and after these events. What we found is that seniors, who sometimes have a negative perception of “kids these days,” stepped into our schools and were really wowed by students.

They got to see just where their support goes in the community—the service they provide in advocating for public schools.

Ways to Give Your Community Ownership »» Invite parents to feedback meetings to discuss SEL, answer their questions, and address their concerns. »» Connect stakeholders on the fringes of your community—like senior citizens— with students. »» Have students make posters and banners promoting key SEL skills, like self-confidence, empathy, and teamwork. »» Give your teachers plenty of input and authority in determining SEL programming.

The response to these seemingly minor additions was enormous. Our community revelled in the fact that we weren’t just focusing on high stakes test scores; we were developing students’ character and citizenship alongside their intellect.

As a leader, I’m lucky to work with amazing educators who will take an idea about programming—even just an experience—and run with it. Even at the school level, sometimes the best thing I feel I can do is stand back and support. I say, “That sounds awesome, give it a try.”

Sometimes, I just ask to be invited so I can show up and cheer them on.

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“Too often in education, we talk about where our teachers or schools are failing. We don’t talk about where kids are succeeding despite tremendous obstacles.”

3

Rebrand with SEL in mind.

Implementing SEL in my second superintendency looked different than it had in my first. At East Hanover, we had spearheaded our shift towards SEL with the anti-bullying campaign, but Elmsford had different needs. Elmsford’s varied demographics didn’t keep with the perceived wealth of Westchester County, which gave the district a negative reputation. To renew the district’s focus on SEL, then, we needed to refocus the district on students’ successes, not their failures.

At first, this doesn’t seem to fall under SEL’s umbrella.

But focusing on the positive is critical in supporting human beings. It might sound cheesy, but it’s true. Too often in education, we talk about where our teachers or schools are failing. We don’t talk about where kids are succeeding despite tremendous obstacles. If we fall into this false narrative, we simply perpetuate a deficit model of thinking: what don’t these kids know, as opposed to, how are they shining?

So we committed to flipping this paradigm. We moved away from saying that students lacked in any way. They could do better, or push harder, but they weren’t lacking. This deficit mindset had been pushing us away from considering students’ stories. And when you’re working with kids, their stories are everything.

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At Elmsford, this paradigm shift started with a rebranding of the district. We restructured the district’s website, and increased our media presence by inviting local press to attend our myriad functions. And of course, we didn’t ignore the power of face-to-face interaction, instituting coffee and conversation meetings both in the mornings and evenings to allow for the free flow of ideas between stakeholders and district administrators.

We also implemented community-building programs across the district. Our general education students assisted students with special needs; older kids read for younger kids; varsity athletes visited elementary schools. Judging from the way the kids reacted to our athletes, you’d think the NFL had stopped by for a visit.

At Friday night football games, we invited elementary school students onto the field at halftime. While kids enjoyed running around on the turf, parents got to see their children as part of something greater. It planted that seed of community early on, helping us build a more unified district.

4

Celebrate your successes.

To give SEL equal weight with academics, the arts, and athletics, we need to celebrate it with the same gusto. Some say that you can determine what an organization values by where it places its resources. In my current district, we are proud to devote a great deal of our resources to our students’ well-being.

Connect SEL work to students’ overall success.

Celebrating our victories is not something we’re shy about. When our district’s initiatives were named Promising Practices, we gave the honor as much attention as we would any academic recognition. When they became No Place for Hate Schools—the same excitement. When we were awarded a State School of Character?

The entire community came together to celebrate. Whether through newsletters, traditional media, or social media, we always connect the work to our students’ overall success.

We know “why.” It started in 1943 when Abraham Maslow suggested that humans must fulfill their social and emotional needs before we can achieve self-actualization. In the 75 years since, we’ve learned more about the importance of those skills in navigating a complex, hyperconnected world.

As school CEOs, we can make a critical difference by unifying our districts’ commitments to SEL, incorporating those goals into our district plans as often as possible.

In the end, the more attention we pay to SEL, the more likely it is that our students will be positively engaged within their schools and reach their full potential.

The best part? Implementing SEL doesn’t cost much; all you need is an understanding that this work matters. Even in my first interactions with Michael, I learned that our public schools have a responsibility to do more than just teach subjects—we teach people. Perhaps the most important lessons we can share are kindness, care, and compassion.

That’s SEL, and our children will be better for it.

Be a Guest Writer Want to share your story, idea, or breakthrough in SchoolCEO? Email: editor@schoolceo.com

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Looking for Leaders What six superintendents look for in building-level administrators As the CEO of a school system, one of your most important jobs is selecting the right people to lead at the building level. The challenge is determining who will perform under pressure. We asked superintendents from across the country at AASA’s National Conference on Education what qualities they look for when selecting building-level leaders. Here’s what they had to say.

Commitment Hollis Milton Hollis Milton, superintendent of Louisiana’s West Feliciana Parish Schools, looks for leaders who are committed, those who “will take that phone call at nine at night or on

a Sunday.” This type of leader propels their school forward. “You have to go above and beyond.

I look for someone who is committed to doing the tremendous amount of work it takes to be successful,” he says.

What brings leaders from good to great? Milton says it’s the ability to spread that passion to others. “I’m also looking for someone who will bring enthusiasm to the teachers and the students,” says Milton. “It’s a lot around the soft skills. A strong leader is a master motivator.”

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Urgency Dr. Rick Cobb Rick Cobb, superintendent of Mid-Del Schools in Oklahoma, wants to know that potential candidates understand the importance of the position. “To be a good principal, you have to understand urgency,” Cobb tells SchoolCEO. “Urgency becomes more and more critical the further you move up in your career.”

Spreading that sense of urgency throughout the organization is just as critical. “When something is important, you need to tell the story,” he says.

Connection

Passion Dr. Susan Enfield When looking for candidates to join her team at Highline Public Schools near Seattle, Susan Enfield looks for “an unwavering belief that all children are

deserving and capable of opportunities that will allow them to reach their potential.”

This passion isn’t something you can train or teach.

“I need people with the right mindset and heart for the work,” Enfield says. “That comes through when you talk to people about what brings them to work, what motivates them, what they care about.”

Read more about Dr. Enfield’s work at Highline in “Heart Work” on page 7.

Dr. Betsy Webb “There are so many characteristics you need to be a great leader, but number one, for me, is a passion for inspiring students to learn at the highest level,” says Betsy Webb, superintendent of Bangor Schools in Maine. “I want someone to be a deep thinker, to be a problem solver, not someone that just checks off the boxes.”

Webb also looks to see if candidates are innovative and good communicators. “It’s so important to have someone who looks at the traditions of a school, but makes sure they’re tried and true—those are the ones we want to hold onto,” she tells SchoolCEO. “But, don’t become lax, don’t rest where there are issues. You also need someone who’s an effective communicator, who can work with their faculty and staff and inspire them.”

Dr. Patty Oakley Patty Oakley, superintendent of West Bridgewater Public Schools in Massachusetts, makes sure a candidate can connect with students.

“One thing I like to do is get finalists for a principal position to go into schools to meet kids,” Oakley tells SchoolCEO. “I have each candidate field questions from 20 to 30 students. It doesn’t really matter what their answers are—it’s really about their reactions to the question. Are they walking over to the student? Can they laugh with them? You get a glimpse of how a candidate’s relationship will be with the kids.”

Dr. William Wright When he’s fielding candidates, William Wright, Jr., superintendent of North Carolina’s Hertford County School District, goes beyond a traditional interview. “When I’m hiring for a principalship, I pay the candidate an unexpected visit to their current workplace,” he tells SchoolCEO. Wright likes to see how candidates for any building-level position behave in their current roles.

“The interview will tell you one thing, but I want to see them in action,” he says.

Read our previous Q&As with Dr. Webb and Dr. Cobb at

www.SchoolCEO.com

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It’s the end of Volume 1.

We can’t wait to show you what comes next.

Last year, we set out to make a resource that empowers school leaders to change the conversation around their schools. Thank you to everyone who read, contributed, and sent in notes about the publication.

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