SchoolCEO Fall 2023

POWERED BY APPTEGY FALL 

HIGHLIGHTS:

How Colorado superintendent Dr. Wendy Birhanzel is creating opportunity against all odds

Minnesota’s Dr. Matt Hillmann on building stronger relationships with your teachers union

The Rebrand Bandwagon

We’ve talked to enough school leaders to know that tradition is an important part of a thriving school community. We also know it’s equally important for schools to have an eye on the future. Rebranding is a unique opportunity to unite both the past and the future under the umbrella of a well-developed brand.

(Read more on p. 34)

Top Tips

Building Big Picture Buy-In

Internal Communications

Let’s Talk About It

The strategic planning process is a great opportunity to get your whole staff on the same page and excited about the future. Whether you’ve finished developing your strategic plan, you’re only beginning the process, or you inherited a plan from your predecessor, the success of your strategic plan hinges on how it ’s shared with staff.

(Read more on p. 58)

In the Loop

S c h o o l C EO is built on the expertise of school leaders, so we wanted to hear from you. What strategies for strengthening internal communication have worked in your district? How do you keep internal stakeholders— from building-level leaders to teachers to classifed staf—on the same page? Here’s what school leaders around the country had to say.

(Read more on p. 62)

Research: Layers of Leadership

Key to Dr. Carol Kilver’s success as a leader is the way she communicates with her staff members. By understanding how the mind works, she’s able to implement systems that fulfill her employees’ psychological needs for certainty and belonging. Here, she shares her thoughts and strategies for effective internal communication—the kind that will grow both your employees and your district. (Read more on p. 24)

We explore internal communication between principals and superintendents, especially around school comms, marketing, and branding. What communication gaps exist between these two levels—and how can administrators work together to create strong brands? (Read more on p. 15)

How do you keep your team in sync ?

If you’ve ever watched the Summer Olympics or followed elite college sports, you might be familiar with competitive rowing. In team competition, crews of two, four, or eight rowers work together to race their boats down a 2,000-meter course. Rowing isn’t just physically demanding; it also requires complete team alignment. Each rower’s oars must enter the water at the exact same time, at the exact same angle, and with the exact same amount of force. Even a minuscule difference in any of these factors will send the boat off course and maybe even cost the team the race.

In some ways, your district is like a rowing team. You’re all working together to move toward a destination—the mission and vision you’ve set for your schools. But in order to reach your goals, you have to be rowing in perfect sync. Of course, getting (and staying) in total alignment is easier said than done. But there’s one crucial factor that makes it possible: strong internal communication.

Internal communication is one of the hardest things for any organization to master, but it’s necessary. According to a 2023 analysis by Forbes Advisor, more than 40% of workers said poor communication negatively impacted their job satisfaction, their productivity, and their trust in their organization’s leadership. At a time when recruitment and retention Editor: Me

lissa Hite

Writers/Researchers:

OUR TEAM

are more top-of-mind than ever, you can’t afford to get this critical component of your organizational culture wrong.

But even more importantly, strong internal communication will build buy-in for key initiatives—whether it’s a district rebrand or a new strategic plan. It will help cascade your mission and vision down to individual schools through your building-level leaders. It will help you develop a culture of collaborative communication and build your personal brand as a leader. We’re covering all that and more in this edition of SchoolCEO.

This issue is packed with expert perspectives—from Dr. Carol Kilver, who uses Cognitive Coaching to collaborate with staff more effectively, to Dr. Matt Hillmann, who cites communication as one of the major factors in his strong relationship with his district’s teachers union. We’re also releasing our new, in-depth research on how superintendents and principals can collaborate to build cohesive marketing and communication strategies.

Keeping your team in sync is a monumental challenge, no doubt. But the more lines of internal communication you keep open, the better your schools can row forward—together.

VP of Marketing: Tyler Vawser

Graphic Designers/Illustrators:

Brittany Keil, Marie Kressin, Alex Barton, Marisol Quintanilla

Heather Palacios, Corey Whaley

Data Analyst: Matt Vandenberg

Social Media: Thiphavanh “Bri” Vongvilay

Video/Podcast Producers:

Operations: Barrett Goodwin Ryan McDonald, Tanner Cox

4 School Shoutout: KREN Studio 40

New Mexico’s Las Cruces Public Schools is giving students hands-on experience in filmmaking and broadcasting.

8 Opportunity Against All Odds

Colorado superintendent Dr. Wendy Birhanzel is proving that putting kids first creates opportunities and changes lives.

15 Research: Layers of Leadership

We interviewed 30 superintendents and principals to decipher best practices around marketing and branding.

24

Q&A: In the Loop

How Dr. Carol Kilver of Illinois’ Pikeland CUSD 10 uses cognitive coaching as a basis for internal communication

28 Architecture of a Brand

We’ll teach you all about brand structures and how they can help you accomplish your district’s goals.

The Rebrand 34 Bandwagon

Internal communication is key to getting staff on board with your district’s rebrand.

44 From Classroom to Community

How loneliness harms your teachers—and how to help move them from isolation to connection

49 Perspective: On the Same Page

Minnesota’s Dr. Matt Hillmann shares how he maintains a healthy relationship with his district’s teachers union.

53 Rebranding Lessons

We turn to the business world to find out what to do—and not do—as you roll out your district’s rebrand.

58

Big Picture Buy-In

To be successful, your strategic plan needs districtwide buy-in. Here’s how internal communications can help.

39 Communicating Your Internal Personal Brand

Your personal brand impacts your schools at every level. But how are you communicating it to teachers and staff?

Want to read up on all you’ve missed? Past issues are available at: schoolceo.com

Scan this QR code to read and share this issue online.

Plus, find us on social media:

Facebook: SchoolCEO

X/Twitter: @School_CEO

LinkedIn: SchoolCEO

SCHOOL SHOUTOUT:

KREN Studio 40 at Las Cruces Public Schools

By Corey Whaley

Look out, Hollywood—there’s heavy competition on the way. Over the last few years, Las Cruces, New Mexico’s rapidly growing film industry has not only helped the local economy, but also earned the desert city national attention. In January 2023, MovieMaker Magazine named Las Cruces as one of the “Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker.” And thanks to the bold dream of a beloved local leader—and a commitment to fulfilling her legacy—Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) is making sure every student can share their own story on screen.

Continuing Her Story

It all started with the late Dr. Karen Trujillo. A Las Crucen since her senior year of high school, Trujillo spent 30 years as an educator in New Mexico, serving as state secretary of education before returning to lead LCPS as superintendent in 2019. As she skillfully shepherded students and staff through the pandemic, she began to build her vision for the district. Trujillo wanted to give every student the ability to tell their own story.

This is especially important in a place like LCPS, the second-largest school district in New Mexico. Serving over 25,000 students in the Las Cruces metropolitan area, the district’s 40 school sites are siloed geographically, so finding ways for each campus to tell their own stories— while also contributing to the district’s unified story—was a top priority.

More specifically, Trujillo’s mission was to give all LCPS schools the tools to produce and broadcast their own content—news stories, announcements, student films, and more. In doing so, every student in the district would get hands-on experience in a wide array of filmmaking techniques while also sharing stories from their specifc communities. “I think Dr. Trujillo recognized really clearly that the beauty of our school district is that we try to make sure each campus is responsive to and embedded in their local community,” says Chief Technology Ofcer Josh Silver.

Because LCPS already had successful broadcasting programs at many of its secondary schools, the late superintendent decided that every campus, regardless of grade level, needed its own studio. So Trujillo set out to make her dream a reality. She started by advocating for her students at the state level, securing enough funding from the legislature to build out the district’s existing studios and install 20 new ones on its remaining campuses. Then, while classes met virtually due to the pandemic, studios were built all over the district. Upon the eventual return to school, most LCPS campuses would be ready for students to start producing content. Some schools were even able to use their new equipment virtually.

For their inaugural broadcast, Valley View Elementary School interviewed Trujillo via Zoom. “She had the opportunity to see her work finally play out in the way that she had intended it,” says Kelly Jameson, the district’s director of communications. The young broadcasters at

Valley View asked Trujillo what it was like being a superintendent. “The best part about being a superintendent is getting to talk to students like you,” she answered. “It’s my most prized piece of video,” Jameson tells us.

In February of 2021, as the studio rollout was still taking place, Trujillo lost her life in a tragic accident. “It was truly sudden,” Silver tells us. “It just happened one night, just like that, and it was so awful.” It was mere weeks before LCPS was set to return to in-person instruction. Students and staff, who had looked to Trujillo for guidance throughout the pandemic, were in total shock. Outside of her superintendency, Trujillo had also made an unforgettable impact on the region. She’d been elected county commissioner years prior and had been a faculty member at New Mexico State University for over a decade. As a professor and researcher, she devoted most of her time to pre-service teachers and strengthening the state’s student-to-teacher pipeline. “She was very well known in the community, and we deeply felt that loss,” Silver tells us.

After an emotional return to their school buildings, students and staff rallied behind the studio plan like never before. Then the LCPS team realized they could build on Trujillo’s dream to make an even bigger impact. By connecting each school’s studio to the district’s television station, LCPS TV, they could create a network of affiliate stations—40 individual studios at all 40 school sites, all feeding stories to LCPS TV. “We saw the power for our schools to help us highlight their stories on a districtwide level,” Silver explains.

This new network of affiliate stations would need a collective name. The team discussed it and eventually landed on the perfect one. In honor of Dr. Karen Trujillo, they’d call it KREN Studio 40.

A Network of Experiences and Support

Part of Trujillo’s original vision was to ensure that these new studios weren’t seen as something solely extracurricular. They were to be ingrained in the instructional principles of each school site, allowing students to learn through experience. It was important to the LCPS team to maintain that vision.

“Experiential learning is a huge part of our district,” Silver tells us. “It happens everywhere here. So it was foundational that we see the larger concept of media literacy—skills around computational thinking, digital storytelling, and even democracy—as holistic parts of learning. Those skills do not live only in a media class or CTE pathway.”

The result is a uniquely expansive network of stateof-the-art media labs that have all the equipment needed—cameras, computers, sound mixers, you name it—to broadcast content to LCPS TV and video streaming platforms like YouTube. These studios give students in every school hands-on experiences in a variety of areas, from broadcasting, producing, and filmmaking to communications and inclusive practices. And no matter the project, all student work in the studios is aligned to competencies in the district’s Profiles of a Graduate. Similar to Portrait of a Learner, the profiles follow students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

“These profiles outline competencies we as a district and community want each Las Cruces graduate to exhibit before they leave us,” Silver explains. “And they guide a lot of our curriculum, especially something like this, which is usually more project-based.” The graduate profiles are also tiered by age group, with lessons changing to meet competencies at each grade level. “Whether it’s honesty, self-awareness, or showing empathy, they take these skills with them as they grow as students,” Silver adds. “Ultimately, these will help our KREN kids be better communicators and problem solvers.”

Another part of Trujillo’s vision was to have built-in support for the studios at every school. “There is a person who serves as an instructional and technical support to our labs,” says Silver. “Aside from that, we’ve done summer sessions where we train teachers on the LCPS TV side of things.” Although each school runs their lab a little differently, every campus has a teacher onsite who’s in charge of the lab—bringing classes in, supporting students, and sometimes teaching lessons or leading projects, depending on the grade level and school.

To successfully support so many studios—and to better align curriculum to this work—the district provides every lab with the same equipment and software, no matter the grade level. The tools high school students use to make

content in a CTE class are the same ones elementary and middle schoolers use to create stories in their own studios. “Our LCPS TV folks really helped us source the right equipment, making sure it all aligned vertically from K through 12, aligning it to our existing LCPS TV equipment, and aligning it to our philosophical and instructional educational goals,” says Silver. “Everyone’s using the same vehicle, but to very different destinations.”

Telling Their Stories

So what are students actually creating in these studios? Well, it runs the gamut. Each campus is given the agency to produce the kind of content they want. In the district’s high schools, media labs are mostly utilized in CTE pathway courses for producing news and student film projects. But at the elementary and middle school levels, students use the studios to produce and broadcast things like morning announcements, sporting events, news stories, video projects for core classes, music videos, animations, and film contest entries. When we spoke to Silver, one of the district’s elementary school affiliates was working on a PSA about recent rattlesnake sightings on campus. “The sky’s the limit,” Silver says.

And it’s not uncommon to find high schoolers in the district watching work produced by elementary students. “We all know how hard it is to connect older kids to younger kids in a community, but we’ve seen lots of our high schoolers going down to the middle schools and elementaries to train kids on the equipment,” says Silver. “That’s a common thing for us now.”

Photos courtesy of Las Cruces Public Schools

“I can honestly say that when they get to college, our students are going to be set,” says LCPS PR Coordinator Samantha Lewis. “They’ve been working with professional equipment that you see at the college level. They’re using all those tools from an early age, and it’s giving them a big head start when it comes to the world of media or broadcast storytelling.”

As far as successful rollouts go, the district overall has embraced KREN Studio 40. “In some schools, it’s a non-negotiable that every student is a part of this, and everyone in the school community celebrates that,” says Silver. And you can already see the impact on students across LCPS. “We really want the kids to be proud of themselves,” Silver says. “We’re all scared to get in front of the camera, but if everybody has to do it, and there’s a culture around that, then we can overcome our fears together. Be proud to get up there and do your thing. It’s a real confidence boost in a safe space because we’re all getting better as communicators.”

The culmination of KREN Studio 40’s yearlong and bittersweet rollout was the inaugural Tell the Story Film Showcase last May. The film festival featured competition entries from 18 participating schools, all produced using their new or revamped media labs. “We wanted to capture all the work that these studios were creating in a districtwide event,” Silver says. “And whether you were a kindergartener or a senior in high school, all the instructions were the same—they had enough of a framework for success, but we also allowed for independence and creativity. And I’m really proud of that. That’s hard to do.”

At the elementary level, students were challenged to write, produce, and film their entries in just 168 hours while incorporating specific elements, like using a yearbook as a prop. High school students were challenged to do the same, but in just 48 hours. In total, more than 200 students across the district participated in the competition. Entries were then screened at a two-night red carpet event. “We partnered with Allen Theatres, who are tremendous sponsors of ours,” says Silver. “We had four theaters there with two showings each night. And our kids got to walk the red carpet to see their own films.”

As students and parents lined the red carpet, they were interviewed by PR Coordinator Lewis—a former news reporter—and a student reporter named Zaydrien,

whose man-on-the-street style interviews nearly stole the show. Inside, student short films—ranging from ominous dramas to slapstick heist comedies to stop-motion animations—flashed across the screen to a captivated audience of Las Crucens, all connected by the power of story. “To have hundreds of students contributing to the goal of storytelling was such a collective standing ovation for us to finally see,” says Jameson.

As KREN Studio 40 evolves, Silver believes these labs can be used for new endeavors that will help the district tell its collective story, like recruitment videos and testimonials. But the impact this project has already had on the district’s students is awe-inspiring to say the least. “This is a way for every kid to feel empowered and unique in their creativity,” Silver explains. “And they’re not just learning new skills; they’re making something. They own these films. Those are theirs.”

There’s no doubt that Dr. Trujillo left quite a mark on Las Cruces, and her legacy will only continue to shape this city of storytellers. “This was her home,” Silver says. “She would often say we have the people and skills and tools we need right here. We just need to leverage them. She believed that fully, and she really wanted to make this the best place possible.”

In October 2020, Trujillo wrote a guest column for the Las Cruces Sun-News about finding hope during the pandemic. How better to end this story about hope—a story that started with Trujillo herself—than to give her the final word. “It would be easy to get stuck in the darkness,” she wrote, “but we can’t. We each have to find a way to see some light. I see it in our students.”

Dr. Wendy Birhanzel

When Dr. Wendy Birhanzel was in high school, she was determined not to become an educator. “My mother was a teacher, my father was a teacher and coach, my grandmother and great-grandmother were college professors, and my grandfather was a superintendent,” she explains. “It was kind of like, You grow up in the family, you do what the family does. But like most teenagers, I wasn’t going to do what they said I should do.”

So instead of pursuing the family legacy, Birhanzel leaned into her love of math and decided to study actuarial science. “I was totally into it,” she says. “Then I went to college on a scholarship and started an internship. I didn’t last a year before I realized it was going to be a boring career. I needed to be in the people business—where I could make a difference.”

With a smile, Birhanzel admits that the writing was always on the wall. “I used to teach school lessons to my Cabbage Patch Kids and Barbies,” she says. But that was just the beginning. Later, she helped her mother grade papers, taught Sunday school, and coached basketball at the YMCA. “I had always been in a teacher role,” she says. “I was trying to fight it, but it was natural for me. And now I just can’t stop. I love being around students. I love making a difference for people, elevating them, and helping them find their voices.”

This passion has been at the forefront of Birhanzel’s 23year career, especially in her work as the superintendent of Harrison School District Two (HSD2) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And her joyful brand of collaborative, inclusive, and bold leadership has earned her countless accolades, including the title of 2023 Colorado Superintendent of the Year. As she enters her fifth year leading the

13,000-student urban district, Birhanzel’s commitment to serving every single child has only grown stronger.

“I love helping tear down barriers and proving people wrong,” she says, “proving that a zip code doesn’t define success—that regardless of where kids come from, they can be successful.”

The People Business

Once she said goodbye to actuarial science and accepted her calling to be a teacher, Birhanzel enrolled in North Dakota’s Valley City State University to study elementary education and reading. She began her career all the way on the West Coast in South Central Los Angeles, and her eye-opening experience there started to shape the students-first approach to education that she’s centered her entire career around.

“I always wanted to live in LA, so I moved out there to start teaching,” Birhanzel tells us. “And during that time I had a lot of aha moments. My school was overcrowded, there were no trees, no grass, just concrete. I was teaching out in a bungalow with cockroaches running across the floor and bullet holes in the side of it.” There was even a barbed wire fence around the school’s playground—and that was just the physical environment. Birhanzel says teachers would come and go, substitutes would walk out in the

Photos courtesy of Harrison School District Two

middle of the day, and classes were packed with 30plus students. “I was disgusted by the conditions these students were forced to try to learn in,” she adds.

Birhanzel’s childhood had been much different, and she was struck by the lack of support her students received at school and at home. “My mom was super involved and supported me in everything I did,” she says. Birhanzel also had the privilege of attending local schools where staff members were friends with her educator parents, so she always felt welcomed and safe.

But as a teacher in South Central LA, Birhanzel witnessed a much different story playing out. She saw up close how poverty was affecting so many students’ lives and realized that education wasn’t just about academics. It was about addressing the needs of the whole child. “I realized others did not have the same support I’d had,” she says. “That ignited my work around equity, around ensuring all kids have opportunities, regardless of where they live or what their parents do.”

More deeply committed to being an educator than ever, Birhanzel went back to school to study for her doctorate in Educational Leadership in Urban School Settings at the University of Southern California. “I wanted to make a bigger difference than I could in just my classroom,” she tells us. After graduating, she moved to Colorado and held principalships at three different schools. Two of them—Wildflower Elementary and Centennial Elementary—are schools in her current district, HSD2. Both were struggling before she arrived, but under her leadership, each school made impressive changes for the better. Both won National Blue Ribbon and America’s Best Urban Schools awards and were named National Title I Distinguished Schools.

In each case, Birhanzel’s dedication to centering student advocacy helped lead to lasting change, and she credits relationship-building as the foundation of that work. “Building relationships changes the narrative of what people think about a specific place, and it brings everyone together toward a shared goal,” she says.

That same work is part of her brand as a superintendent. Whether she’s listening to community input, sending personal notes to students, talking to everyone she sees on school visits, or maintaining an actual open-door policy,

Birhanzel is always building relationships. “Unfortunately a lot of our kids have so many transitions in their lives that they’re not going to trust you right away,” she explains. “You have to earn it and show them you’re really there for them.”

Birhanzel’s time at these schools was inspiring to say the least, but one bittersweet experience ended up pushing her in a new direction. “At Wildflower, we had 100% of our third graders proficient in reading. That is unheard of,” she tells us. But what should have been a time for celebrating was soon soured by skepticism from the community at large. She started getting calls accusing the district of cheating and asking how her students— the majority of whom were Hispanic and living below the poverty line—could possibly outperform rich, white kids at other schools. “That, again, taught me that not everyone understands how education really can change outcomes,” Birhanzel says. “It was sad, but it helped me understand that I needed to be an even bigger voice for our students.”

That led her to become HSD2’s instruction, curriculum, and assessment officer, where she gained a broader perspective on the work that goes into supporting schools

from the district level. “Coming from the elementary level, this new role really helped me learn about the secondary school piece and solidified for me that relationships are at the core of what we do, regardless of grade level,” she explains. Birhanzel proved this by leveraging the relationships she’d made as a principal to get feedback from former staff on district decisions.

This role also helped her become an expert in measuring student proficiency, which she believes is a must for successfully leading a district. “I need to know what those targets look like and how to tell if we’re on track because our students have to compete worldwide now,” Birhanzel says. And after just four years at central office, she finally got the chance to lead the district she loves and apply the many lessons she’s learned.

Kids First, Always

Since becoming superintendent of HSD2 in 2018, Birhanzel has proven time and time again that when you believe in every student, amazing things can happen. It’s not surprising, then, that much of her focus has been on shifting the culture of the district and centering it around that belief. “Too often in a Title I district, it’s easy to just go with the status quo and assume our kids will always have gaps. But that’s not good enough,” she tells us. “We know our students can compete. It’s about the belief that all decisions should be based on kids.”

You can see this work all over HSD2. Every decision in the district is centered on both a collective conviction that all students can succeed and a dedication to providing them with the necessary supports to make it happen. Now HSD2 has become a fully fledged destination district in the area. “We’re the district people want to come to now,” Birhanzel says proudly. “We have more people wanting to be principals and teachers here than we have open positions—that’s because of the culture. People know everyone is accepted here, that we’ll meet them where they are and help them grow.”

For the superintendent, being active in the school community has been a big part of fostering this new culture across the district. “Whether it’s a basketball game, a food drive, or a backpack bash, I am present in the community,” Birhanzel tells us. “They see that I’m one of them. Kids come up and give me hugs; they know me. And I try to know their stories and talk to them about summer school

or their senior year or how basketball is going. Again, those relationships build that culture and trust.”

For Birhanzel, no touch point or opportunity to build a relationship is too small or unimportant. In fact, just before we spoke to her, she was handwriting notes to every principal in the district, thanking them for their work and wishing them a great new school year. “We’re also calling any student who scored above grade level on their endof-year tests to tell their parents, Thank you for all you’ve done with your child. They’re doing amazing. We’re so glad they’re in D2—how can we help you? ” she says. “Those things matter. That’s how you turn your culture around.”

Stepping Up

Unfortunately, supporting all students and staff has been a challenge for many districts lately as heated political divides sweep across the country and spill over into schools. But Birhanzel says HSD2 doesn’t let politics get in the way of serving their students. “We keep that out of our classrooms so we can focus on being with kids and fulfilling what they need,” she tells us. She also says having a supportive school board is a big help when it comes to avoiding “political nonsense.”

“I have a board that supports everything we’re doing,” she tells us. “They’re actually the first all-minority school board in Colorado’s history, and that’s something we’re really proud of—to have a board that truly represents our community is so beautiful. They’re seeing the changes and improvements here, so we’re in lockstep on what is right for our kids. And they’ll take the criticism from the public because they know it’s the right work.”

Birhanzel isn’t afraid to face criticism either. “I always tell leaders and teachers to let me take the hit,” she says. “If there’s someone who wants to stir up controversy, they’re not getting to our classrooms. They can talk to me or an assistant super or a board member. But that protection has to be there because our teachers are here to teach.”

Advocacy, Birhanzel tells us, also plays a key role in avoiding distractions that take away from learning. Not only does she regularly lobby and testify on behalf of her schools, but she also makes sure to respond publicly to anyone causing controversy or questioning the district’s decisions. “We’re willing to step up and be different,” she says. “I have people who don’t like me, but I’m okay with that because, at the end of the day, I’m doing what’s right by kids. That’s who I’m accountable to.”

A New Dynamic

It’s clear that her devotion to equity is a powerful driving force for Birhanzel—and when she says every decision in the district is about students first, she means it. “I have 13,000 kids, and I view them all as my own,” she says. “So when I’m making decisions, I ask what I would want my own kids to get, and that’s what these students should get, too. I think sometimes leaders forget that. But we need to fight for each kid like they’re our own, like their successes along with their failures are ours as well. Because that’s what they deserve, plus some.”

Birhanzel says her staff feels the same way. “I would put all of our employees up against anyone,” she says. “They are so supportive of our students, and they go above and beyond for them. If you’re in Harrison 2, you’re here because you believe in kids.” And that belief is paying dividends. “Despite the gaps, we get them to proficiency,” Birhanzel says. “We outperform similar districts throughout the state because we have that teacher focus. We have high expectations, but we give our teachers the supports they need to make it happen.”

Birhanzel’s executive team is also dedicated to this strong vision of equity and support, to always prioritizing what’s best for kids. “We can have a disagreement, we can play devil’s advocate, push back on each other, but we always come out totally on the same page,” she says. “Without this team, we wouldn’t be able to move this district forward.”

Moving the district forward also means acknowledging and addressing their weaknesses. When they realized they were oversuspending and expelling boys of color, for example, the district talked about it with the community and their students. “We are a district that will tell our ugly,” Birhanzel says. “We tell our true story because that’s the only way we’re going to get better.” In addition to districtwide SEL programming, HSD2 is now addressing the problem by leaning into restorative practices. “After

all, a kid with a behavior issue is crying out for help,” Birhanzel says, “so why would we push them away when they need us most?” Birhanzel has also placed full-time social workers on each campus and created the district’s first Equity Council.

“We’ve also brought in some bias training for our staff because we know most teachers across the nation are predominantly middle-class and white,” she explains. “When you come to a diverse community, you don’t always understand the intricate details within the culture. So we’ve done a lot of training on diversity, equity, and on how we respond to our students.”

Removing Every Barrier

Perhaps the most game-changing aspect of Birhanzel’s superintendency has been her successful mission to make everything free for all students—and we mean everything. From school supplies to technology to breakfast and lunch, students in HSD2 are never asked to pay a dime for the resources they need to thrive. “A lot of our families are struggling just to put food on the table,” Birhanzel says. “And our students’ basic needs are more important than anything.”

This is really the crux of Birhanzel’s work in the district— to make sure every child’s basic needs are met so they can learn and grow. “Everything really is free here,” she explains. “All of our sports, our clubs, tutoring, laptops— it’s all free. Everything except our yearbooks, but if you need help paying for that, we’ll find you a sponsor.” This could very well reshape the culture and economy of the area for decades to come. “We put everything in place for our students to have equitable experiences to their peers in more affluent districts,” Birhanzel says. “We can take on that burden for them.”

The district’s wraparound support doesn’t end there. All students who graduate from HSD2 with at least a 2.25 GPA are also guaranteed two free years of community college at nearby Pikes Peak State College. They can earn associate degrees or certificates in technical trades, or they can transfer their credits to a four-year degree program. “We like to say we provide pre-K through grade 14,” Birhanzel says. “When you’re the first in your family to break that never-been-to-college cycle, we need to help you. So we take care of our kids through their transition into adulthood.”

So how does the district pay for all this and keep the lights on? Birhanzel says where there’s a will, there’s a way. “Your budget tells what you prioritize and what you care about,” she says. “We can’t afford not to do this, because our kids can’t learn math if their basic needs aren’t met.” By prioritizing student needs in their operating budget and using grants, HSD2 has been able to accomplish something most districts wouldn’t think possible.

“In my opinion, we should fund schools appropriately,” Birhanzel says. “But Colorado is one of the lowest funded states for education. The state actually owes us money. That means we have to be very strategic about how we spend every penny.” If something can’t be paid for through a grant or other program, the district still finds a way to make it happen. When they weren’t allowed to use ESSER funds to purchase second school lunches for high school students, Birhanzel and her team took those funds from the general budget, using ESSER for other things instead. “The money is there,” she says. “You just have to prioritize what you care about.”

A Leader Who Listens

When we spoke with Dr. Birhanzel, one thing was crystal clear: This is a leader who greatly respects students— their needs, their dreams, and especially their voices. It will come as no surprise that the district makes sure students are heard at every turn. “I’m very much known for giving students a voice,” she tells us. “If someone brings me a proposal, I want to know what students they talked to first, what they think. As adults, we shouldn’t be sitting in our offices making all the calls when it’s the students who actually have to sit with the decisions we make.”

Like we said before, in HSD2, every decision is based on students—and that includes really listening to their

“As adults, we shouldn’t be sitting in our offices making all the calls when it’s the students who actually have to sit with the decisions we make.”

thoughts and ideas about how their schools should work. Elementary students share ideas with their teachers or principals, which then make their way to Birhanzel. At the secondary level, students have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Birhanzel and advocate for themselves and their classmates. “I created Superintendent Advisory Groups at all of our high schools that I meet with monthly,” she explains. “They’re made up of 20 students each, and it’s not just National Honor Society kids who are doing well in school. It’s kids who aren’t doing so well, too.”

Meeting with these groups has led to changes in the district, from lunch options to cell phone policies. “The kids are so honest,” Birhanzel says. “We’re able to talk about all kinds of things, like how they thought our dress code was too strict for prohibiting spaghetti-strap shirts. So we changed that rule because of their input.” For Birhanzel, once again, it comes down to building relationships that garner trust and prepare students for the future. “They know that they’re safe and supported and that their voices matter,” she says. “That’s what school is about: helping people find their voice, communicate, and learn to disagree in a respectful, professional manner. And that’s what we do here.”

Everyone Has Value

It’s truly difficult to cover all the successes HSD2 has had during Birhanzel’s time at the helm. Her passion and drive have inspired an entire school community to rally around their kids and refuse to accept anything less than what students deserve. Under her leadership, student achievement has risen sharply, suspensions and expulsion rates have drastically fallen, and the district has increased their graduation rate. HSD2 has consistently outperformed every other district in Colorado that shares its demographics. The district was even named a 2022 Best Education Workplace by the Colorado Springs Business Journal.

When we asked Dr. Birhanzel where she got her big heart, where she learned to be so accepting of others, she gave the credit to her mom. “She was so open and supportive of all students,” she tells us. “To her, everyone had value, and she didn’t judge anyone. I grew up with that belief, and I think I’ve carried it with me this whole time without really realizing it. Instead of judging, I just want to learn more.”

Looking back on her decision to step into the family business, Birhanzel has a smile on her face and a light in her eyes. It’s impossible not to see the joy she finds in this work. “If I was an actuarial scientist, how bored would I be right now?” she asks us, laughing. “I love coming to work every day, and every day is so different. It’s so rewarding to talk to a former student and hear what they’re doing to impact the world. So yeah, I was that teenager who wasn’t going to do what their parents said, but that’s exactly what I ended up doing—and I love it so much.”

LAYERS OF LEADERSHIP

Leveraging Executive Internal Communication for Stronger Brands

By Brittany Keil

These are among the answers we received when we asked school leaders about the importance of marketing, communication, and branding to a school district’s success. While schools have not always had to view marketing as essential to their survival, this clearly isn’t the case anymore. The reality is that every school district—from the largest urban ones to the smallest rural ones—must contend with increased competition at every level. No district can afford to miss any opportunity to create positive sentiment for their brand. For schools to thrive—or at least survive—in this rapidly shifting environment, they must find a way to establish themselves as safeguarded, valuable parts of their communities.

But when it comes to who is actually responsible for the work of branding and marketing, the story gets a little complicated. In our previous research “Who Speaks for Your Brand?”, when we asked respondents who they believed was most responsible for promoting and protecting their district’s brand, 44% felt it was the duty of the superintendent. Communications directors ranked in second place, with other administrators, such as principals, coming in at a distant fourth. Once you consider that many families and community members identify more with school-level brands than with district-level ones, things get even messier.

If no one is sure who’s responsible for the work, it’s impossi ble for the work to get done. So for this project, we decided to explore internal communications between the building and district levels of school administration, especially around themes of school communication, marketing, and branding. Through this research, we tried to understand what gaps in communication exist between these two levels, and what conversations must happen in order for school districts of ev ery size and type to develop successful, interwoven brands.

About the Study

In our previous research, we’ve used survey data to better understand various aspects of school communication. In discussing our data with school leaders, however, we’ve discovered that much of our audience finds the openresponse portions of our surveys to be as illuminating as our formal data analysis—if not more so. So for this project, we decided to follow a different research model, focusing on qualitative interviews rather than quantitative data.

For this study, we held 30 one-on-one interviews with principals and superintendents alike from over a dozen districts across the U.S. While we relied on volunteers from our SchoolCEO community, we ensured that our sample included school districts of various sizes, geographic locations, and types. By interviewing one principal and one superintendent from each district, we sought to learn how administrators at both levels perceive their roles and responsibilities within the broader charge of school marketing. We also wanted to better understand the role that internal communication plays in creating a unified district brand.

Each half-hour interview included nine questions around school branding, marketing, internal communication, external communication, and more. In order to understand how perceptions around marketing differ from one level of leadership to another, we spoke to superintendents and principals in separate, confidential interviews. As such, our interview questions varied slightly between principals and superintendents. After conducting hours of interviews and analyzing hundreds of pages of transcripts, we’ve distilled a few high-level findings, which we’ll share in the pages that follow. Some quotes from these interviews have been revised for cohesion and succinctness.

“It’s critical.”

“It’s one of the top most important things on my radar right now.”

“It’s vital.”

We use three key terms throughout this study:

School Communication: Communication that goes from a district to its stakeholders, namely teachers, staff members, students, and families. Elsewhere in this issue, we break this down further into internal and external communication.

Marketing: The practice of influencing how people think and feel about a brand.

Branding: Any work that goes into improving or defining a district’s brand or high-level reputation.

Why principals?

In the constellation of school administration, principals have a uniquely powerful position. They are privy to toplevel conversations about the district while also interacting regularly with students and families. In fact, research has sho wn tha t princip als are s ome o f the mos t trusted institutional leaders in American society. Given our s ociety’s declining faith in institutions—including schools —this trust is crucial.

But if principals are the backbones of a district’s reputation, shouldn’t they be the ones leading the charge around school communication and branding? Again, it’s not th at simple. While the principals we spoke with were just a s likely as superintendents to value school communication, marketing, and branding, the reality is that they spend a lot less time thinking about these topics.

Why? For one, bec ause they’re busy. Many principals’ duties range from administrative coaching to covering classes to disciplining students. In fact, when we asked princip als what they considered to be the most challenging a spect of school communication, almost every interviewee gave some version of the same answer: time.

But there’s also a second reason principals focus less on marketing: Many of them have only recently recognized that they should focus on it at all. After all, principals aren’t often trained on branding and marketing—and marketing still isn’t reflected as a priority in any of the formal ways they’re being assessed. As one principal succinctly put it, “it’s not part of

Our Findings

How do principals and superintendents think about school communication and marketing? And—maybe more importantly—how are they communicating about communication? Here are our highest-level findings.

Observation #1 :

Everyone knows marketing is vital.

Every school leader we talked to—from an elementary principal at a small rural school to a superintendent at a large suburban district—expressed that marketing and branding were unequivocally important to a school district’s success. Some administrators admitted that this importance was relatively new, brought on by the increased pressure of school choice, a renewed focus on family satisfaction, and changes in state law allowing for open enrollment. “I think that public schools really fall down in this area compared to our private school counterparts, the university, and even private sector organizations,” said one superintendent. “For too long, we were the only game in town, and we didn’t have to compete or market ourselves. That’s changed.”

Most superintendents expressed that school communication, marketing, and branding were major priorities for them. Many were working with their cabinets and school boards to build strategies for the future around marketing, especially as it relates to enrollment. Principals, on the other hand, were less likely to speak about broader organizational goals around marketing and branding—but they were more likely to describe experiencing a high level of pressure around school communication, especially communicating with families.

In general, most principals understood how their roles as school communicators impacted student enrollment and retention, and acknowledged that this focus had become more important in recent years. “COVID opened up choices for families that they had never anticipated seeking out,” said one principal. “We know research suggests that people in our country have less and less faith and trust in institutions, and schools are no different. I think the biggest thing around communication, when it comes to schools, is considering our stakeholders—our families and community—and getting them what they need to hear.”

Both principal and superintendent interviewees were frustrated by how difficult it can be to justify marketing expenses to the broader community. One superintendent from the Midwest who had recently embarked on a district rebrand lamented that families were quick to question the increased costs associated with a new marketing campaign. “I’ve experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly of this,” the superintendent explained. “Unfortunately, it took a while for everyone to understand the value of marketing and begin thinking about it as an investment in our district.”

Observation #2:

Principals struggle to incorporate school communication into their day-to-day work. As a superintendent, it is probably no surprise to you that principals are incredibly busy. Although their duties can vary based on the size of their schools and their districts, the role itself is dynamic and changes day-to-day. Most principals said that the hardest part of school communication was simply finding the time. “It’s not that I’m not interested in digging into the work. It’s a time factor,” explained one principal. “There’s no one else in my building who can help me with it, and I don’t have a lot of leftover time to think deeply about it.”

And communication isn’t just time-consuming for principals; it’s also nerve-wracking. Some described facing criticism not only for decisions they’ve made, but for how they communicated those decisions. “It can be so hard to work on something and know that as soon as you send one email about it, you’ll get a flood of criticism,” said one principal. “I honestly dread sending emails.” While communications professionals can sometimes deflect and filter criticism, educators in districts without communications teams usually have to do this themselves.

This can be stressful, especially when principals’ biggest focus is (and should be) on ensuring learning outcomes. As one principal put it, “I can’t sleep at night if I don’t make sure that our kids are ready to go when they leave us, but if I miss an email? That’s different.”

Many superintendents acknowledged this challenge when talking about their marketing and branding expectations for principals. Some offered strategies for making sure that principals have the capacity to think critically about school communications:

• Make sure principals are part of the district-level cabinet, and therefore aware of district-level priorities.

• Build intentional relationships between principals and school communications staff (if your district has them).

• Emphasize communication and branding as part of regular discussions, as well as your principals’ annual evaluations.

• Place administrators such as deans and assistant principals around your principals to alleviate some responsibilities and allow for more focus on communication.

One Midwestern superintendent expressed feeling responsible for ensuring that principals can focus on school communication: “My job is to be a multiplier for the principals to help them be their best, and it’s a principal’s job to be a multiplier for the teachers. The same thing would apply to communications and branding. It is my job to help them grow, but also to set up a framework where they can have success. This has to be a regular part of our conversations.”

Observation #3:

Principals are reluctant to initiate conversations about marketing with their superintendents.

One of our questions resulted in nearly unanimous confusion: “How do you approach speaking to your superintendent about the district’s marketing and branding priorities?” Most principals said something along the lines of, I don’t, but if I had something to say, I’m sure my superintendent would be responsive. This likely speaks to the fact that many principals want to stay within their lanes at the school level. After all, not every principal feels that marketing is in any way their job. However, when you consider that individual school brands are essential parts of a district’s overall brand—and that everyone in our study viewed school marketing and branding as essential to a district’s success—this lack of communication is a bit worrisome.

Still, it could be a matter of perspective. While principals didn’t feel like they had initiated any conversations around marketing and branding, superintendents had a different viewpoint. When asked how they approached speaking to their principals about marketing and branding priorities, many superintendents were full of anecdotes about principals who had come to them with valuable marketing ideas.

This suggests that some principals may have misconceptions about what marketing is—and what it isn’t. One principal, for example, admitted that they thought of marketing solely as activities like running ads in newspapers and writing press releases. But in fact, marketing can encompass anything that improves your brand—including some activities that principals might consider part of their day-to-day work.

Interviewees from both groups discussed superintendents’ open-door policies. While superintendents believed that building-level leaders felt comfortable coming to them with ideas, principals often credited standing meetings as more valuable spaces to talk about big-picture ideas. This disconnect suggests that open-door policies may not be enough to encourage conversations around marketing and branding, especially when those topics aren’t usually a part of every principal’s day-to-day priorities.

One principal mentioned that although they didn’t recall ever going to their superintendent to discuss marketing, they have frequently strategized with their superintendent around school communication in general. “I’m lucky that my superintendent has done a really nice job of building a trusting culture, of making sure that I know my voice is valued, that I will be heard and respected,” the principal explained.

Observation #4:

Getting everyone on the same page is a challenge—but having a communications team generally helps.

At SchoolCEO, most districts we’ve talked to over the years have acknowledged a divide between the strategies laid out at the district level and the realities that play out in school buildings. When it comes to marketing campaigns and standards around school communication, that divide is especially apparent.

In these interviews, we were surprised at the multitude of organizational structures that different districts utilize. In some, principals report directly to their superintendents, while in others, they report to an assistant superintendent or similar intermediary figure who is over teaching and learning. Still other districts place principals under an

executive director, whose job is to funnel information to the communications department or superintendent as needed. Each district’s structure impacts how district- and buildinglevel leaders share ownership over a brand.

For districts with communications teams, there is an additional layer of complexity, especially where school marketing and branding are concerned. However, this isn’t necessarily negative. In fact, almost every principal in our study who had communications staff in their district mentioned having a positive, beneficial relationship with them. This was especially true when the principal had prescribed, structured ways in which they interacted with the comms team.

One principal said his district’s communications team worked hard to market multiple secondary schools as equals. As part of this effort, communications professionals monitored and assisted with family engagement so that families had similar experiences between campuses. “I have a really collaborative relationship with the communications team and am so grateful to have them!” the principal explained. “They tell me over and over again that it’s their job to make my job easier. It makes me feel so much better to know that my communications are vetted by professionals and that th ey’re similar to what other principals are doing across the district.”

Observation #5: Clear lines of communication are critical.

From a bird’s eye view, it’s hard to keep a brand consistent between the district and school levels. Many principals expressed how difcult it was to represent one school while also contributing to their district’s collective story. This makes sense, especially given that principals don’t often receive regular training around school communication and marketing.

To keep individual buildings in sync with the district brand strategy, communication between levels is crucial. But getting information from the district level to the building level or vice versa can be difficult, especially since most principals said they based the bulk of their communication on what they thought their superintendent needed to know. Administrators often fall into patterns of putting out fires rather than communicating regularly about long-term solutions or big ideas.

In our interviews with school leaders, we were surprised at the sheer number of ways superintendents and principals communicate with each other. While superintendents in our study emphasized quick weekly emails or daily texts as their most reliable avenues of communication, principals put more emphasis on face-to-face communication with their district leadership. As one principal in the Southwest explained, “There’s a lot to be said about a face-to-face encounter with someone. When it’s something complicated, I usually just wait for a chance to talk to my superintendent in person.”

The truth is that hashing out big ideas around school communication, marketing, and branding takes time. While texts and emails might be good places to deal with minor questions or issues, it’s probably best to save larger strategybuilding for face-to-face meetings—and to meet in person regularly. As our interviews revealed, administrators at all levels are hungry for these conversations. “Lack of communication is an ax that chips away at the foundation of anything that you have going on,” one principal explained.

Our Recommendations

Internal communication, marketing, and branding are all big ideas that can be difficult to synthesize into actionable tactics. But in our hours of interviews, we heard hundreds of tactical best practices for easier communication, marketing, and branding. Here are a few things you and your team could implement this year, this month, or even tomorrow.

Train principals early and often.

Many school leaders lamented that school communication was one of their most dreaded tasks. Many felt insecure about engaging in strategic marketing work when they had so little time to focus on it. This is somewhat unsurprising given how infrequently our interviewees reported receiving regular training on their districts’ brand and messaging priorities. In our previous research about brand ambassadorship in schools, about 50% of principals reported being trained on these topics less than twice a year. If communication and branding are as important as every interviewee in this study stressed, this is not enough training for most school leaders.

But training doesn’t just have to be formal or one-directional. Sometimes, it can be as simple as regular, intentional conversations. As we found in our study, principals don’t often come to district-level leaders with ideas about school communication or marketing, especially if they don’t have a strong relationship with their superintendent. So, as a district leader, you need to actively encourage principals to share marketing ideas with you.

For example, you might ask principals how communication ideas for their specific schools fit into a broader, districtwide marketing strategy. If you want to emphasize that your district cares for students from kindergarten through graduation, ask them what that care looks like on their campuses and how they see that fitting into the overall district narrative. These shared brainstorms shouldn’t be one-off events. Instead, they should be frequent conversations where you and your principals discuss how you’re each contributing to the story your district wants to tell.

Asking this of your principals may feel like adding work t o their plates—and honestly, it is. But inviting them to collaborate with you in this way will normalize brainstorming and help them understand how their day-to-day work converges with the district’s broader marketing and branding strategy. Some principals we spoke to also admitted that the questions in our survey had pushed them to think about their communication and marketing strategies more deeply than they had in a long time. So sometimes, even just asking the right questions may be a start.

Emphasize a principal’s role as an experiential marketer.

Our research revealed that superintendents view school marketing as necessary to the continued existence of their districts. For the most part, they’re 100% invested in it. But principals say that while they understand the value of marketing, they don’t wrestle with it in the day to day like district-level leaders do. They’re preoccupied dealing with test scores, mollifying angry parents, and finding substitutes. In this difference of perspectives, though, an illuminating truth emerges: When it comes to marketing, the roles of the superintendent and principal are different, but mutually reinforcing.

“Lack of communication is an ax that chips away at the foundation of anything that you have going on.”

What we mean is this: Superintendents, who have a birds-eye view of the district, are responsible for crafting a strategy that enfolds and supports every individual campus. Principals, on the other hand, are responsible for crafting day-to-day experiences for students, families, and employees—ones that hopefully reinforce the district’s mission, vision, and brand. We’ve mentioned in this report that principals are busy doing principal work, but the thing is, principal work is marketing, too. More specifically, principal work is experiential marketing.

Experiential marketing means creating an experience for your audience that is so good it serves as its own form of marketing. When we use this term, we’re not specifically talking about events; we mean every experience your community has with a school, from registration to graduation.

Many of the principals we talked to were frustrated that they couldn’t spend more time on marketing their schools in their respective communities. But rather than spend all your time trying to build your principals’ marketing capacity, we think you should help them understand their role as a manager of experiences. The reality that your principals create for teachers and families gives gravity and credibility to your district’s brand. If the experience in your school buildings

doesn’t match up with the story you’re telling about your district, your community will call you out on it sooner or later—and rightfully so.

Invest in communications professionals, if possible.

As many superintendents well know, communication is a skill and a craft. Although some superintendents have the benefit of regular training in this area, most principals don’t have the same opportunity. Plus, as we established in our earlier observations, principals don’t usually have much time to think critically about communication.

If your district is able, hiring a communications professional can make a major difference for principals. In our conversations, most principals with access to school comms professionals were quick to tout their benefit—and those who didn’t have them wished they did. “In our district, all of the principals are responsible for communicating about what’s going on in their own schools. But it feels like we’re all our own puzzle pieces,” one principal said. “What could it be like if there were someone linking us together?”

But simply having a communications team isn’t enough. You also have to build avenues for principals to regularly strategize with your comms professionals. One principal said that their communications team seemed so connected to district-level concerns that they were unavailable to strategize at the building level. Another principal from a medium-sized district worried that their problems were too small to bother their one-person comms team about.

While we didn’t speak to communications directors for this study, we know from past conversations that many of them enjoy being in the know about what’s going on at the building level. As a superintendent, you and your executive team should create accessible systems for sharing information with the comms team. This will encourage participation from all principals—not just the one or two who feel better equipped to market their campuses.

If your district has a communications team, it is also important to ensure that your principals have regular opportunities to work and build relationships with them. School communication is challenging and vulnerable, and if your principals don’t feel safe working with your comms team, they won’t feel comfortable going to them when something goes wrong.

Make your mission and vision come alive.

As challenging as it is for districts to create districtwide narratives that encompass many schools and programs, having a clear mission and vision is essential for both levels of leadership. These clear touchstones for your work, both in the central office and in school buildings, can bridge the gap between the minutiae of day-to-day experiences and the district’s broader brand narrative. “I’ve told a lot of our teachers that you have to have a telescope and a microscope,” one principal explained. “You need the telescope—our mission and vision—to look into the future of our work. But you also need that microscope to really look at the details and see what we’re doing to move toward that vision.”

In our conversations, we asked each superintendent and principal to define and explain their role in executing their district’s mission and vision. Interviewees from both groups agreed that while vision and mission are often determined at the district level, principals bear the weight of translating them into daily experiences for staff, students, and families. “The district hired me to help support their mission and vision, to sell it—so I need to do that,” one principal from a large school district explained. “I think my number-one role is to understand it and support it.”

Many of our principal interviewees felt they had an important role to play in how mission and vision are communicated at the school level. “I think my responsibility as the principal is to support our mission and vision, period,” explained one elementary principal from a small district. “If I am talking about branding and marketing—whether I am good at it or I’m bad at it—everything I put out there should reflect what our mission and vision stand for.”

Moving Forward

Over the course of this study, dozens of superintendents and principals helped us hone our understanding of how internal communication affects the executive levels of school leadership. While our interviews were highly structured, many of our Zoom calls began with a few minutes of warm, idle chatter. Some administrators seemed a little nervous to talk about a subject they felt they didn’t think about often enough. But in all cases, it quickly became apparent that our interviewees were fiercely devoted to their work as educators—and to getting their schools or districts the recognition they deserved.

School marketing is not a recent phenomenon, but given increasing competition for both teachers and students, it’s become a necessity for schools to thrive. And to do it well, leaders at all levels need to perform within a shared strategy that ensures clear communication and strong outcomes. Superintendents must not only build a clear vision for their district brand, but make that vision crystal clear to all stakeholders—especially building-level leaders. Then, principals can create day-to-day experiences that make that vision a reality for students, families, and staff members.

For this to work, superintendents and principals must communicate with each other regularly—not just about the minutiae of daily work, but also about deep, long-term strategies for the district’s future. They must make sure they’re aligned on marketing, branding, and communication. If district- and building-level leaders can do that, their schools will be able to build strong and authentic brands for decades to come.

Q &A: IN THE LOOP

DR. CAROL KILVER ON GROWING STAFF AND SCHOOLS THROUGH STRONG INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

By Melissa Hite

Dr. Carol Kilver probably spends more time thinking about the human brain than your average superintendent. With about 20 years of experience in Cognitive Coaching,* she has founded her educational leadership on understanding how people think. It’s clear that her approach is paying off. Now in her fourth year as superintendent at Pikeland CUSD 10 in Illinois, she was recently named a Superintendent of Distinction by the Illinois Association of School Administrators. The superintendents who nominated her applauded her skills in navigating conflict, setting strong goals, and instituting systems that effectively measure critical data points.

Key to Kilver’s success as a leader is the way she communicates with her staff members. By understanding how the mind works, she’s able to implement systems that fulfill her employees’ psychological needs for certainty and belonging. In the following conversation, she shares just a few of her thoughts and strategies for effective internal communication—the kind that will grow your employees as individuals and your district as a whole.

*Cognitive Coaching refers to the Cognitive Coaching Foundation Seminar TM, a professional development offered through Thinking Collaborative.

Dr. Carol Kilver

What is Cognitive Coaching? How does it influence the way you communicate with your staff?

stuck on an issue and can’t move forward. I use it in professional development and in the evaluation process. And I also use it with individuals who possibly have limited experiences beyond their own cognitive schema. It provides an opportunity for people to ask themselves, What’s keeping me from thinking differently?

I think that it also helps with climate and culture. In our society, it seems like there’s always this hierarchy—the person at the top knows all the answers and pushes them down to everyone else. But when you invite others to think along with you, it creates a very safe space. Your culture becomes one that’s not about automaticity with answers. It’s not about speeding through the conversation and getting it off your checklist. It really is about thinking, learning, and growing as a professional team.

A A

Cognitive Coaching is a cognitive science founded on the belief that all individuals are selfdirected, and they just need the opportunity to plan, reflect, and resolve issues through the use of language. As a coach, you believe that people have answers within themselves. They may not have a definite, clear-cut answer, but after a coaching conversation, they know what step to take, they know why they’re taking it, and they can anticipate their impact by developing indicators of success.

As a Cognitive Coach, when someone comes through my door with a problem, I don’t just hand them the answer they’re looking for. I often find time for us to have conversations where we plan, reflect, and calibrate together. Then we might think about resolving the issue. And so through the use of invitational language, you provide the opportunity for someone to find the answer within themselves.

This is a great tool for helping individuals grow in multiple ways. Oftentimes I use it with staff when there are signs of conflict or when people are

How does that Cognitive Coaching mindset play into your internal communication?

When I think about this, I think about the work of neuroscientist David Rock, who developed the SCARF Model. SCARF stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. Those five domains influence our behavior in social situations. When we feel threatened in one of these areas, it actually triggers a survival response—your fight or flight. But when we feel rewarded in one of those areas, we feel more psychological safety.

So if we apply that to communication, predictable cycles of information raise our status as individuals because they make us feel more empowered. Because they’re predictable, they provide that certainty—and the brain loves certainty. We want to know what’s coming next. Predictable cycles even move us beyond certainty to give us some autonomy; because we’re empowered thinkers and have information we can act on, we have choices. So we feel a sense of fairness and relation to others in our organization. We are all in the same loop.

Something we often fell into at Pikeland in the past is what I call “random acts of excellence.” People were doing excellent work, but they were moving in all different directions. Those gaps in communication were slowing us down, causing conflict, keeping people from feeling a sense of belonging. But if you look at our mission and vision, it’s about making sure people feel like they belong here—and the way we communicate internally plays a big part in that.

QPart of internal communication is providing feedback and setting clear expectations. How do you do that with your building-level leaders?

account ability piece, making sure we follow through. I’m a firm believer that if we don’t measure, we will never move. So a principal might see in their evaluation that they only got seven out of nine Pikeland Prouds turned in. I try to connect it in a way that shows them, This is what we’re measuring. This is what we’re moving forward. That’s our personal and professional accountability to each other; we really do need to be honest about when we have fallen short of a target.

A Q A

In my mind, when I moved over to the superintendency, I gained a new classroom of learners—my principals. Just like with teaching, I have to ask, How do I break this information down so that people can readily comprehend it and do the work? One issue that I run into with principals is we get into a habit of only communicating about an issue once, when we should be having ongoing conversations. So lately I’ve been working on asking: Why don’t we schedule some emails to follow up on this topic later and keep it fresh? When does this information need to resurface again?

With my principals, I create a running list of communications targets we’re wanting to hit for each campus. That stays on a shared drive, so when they’ve accomplished a task, they can just mark it off and let me know. One of those targets is something called Pikeland Proud. This is a monthly assignment principals put together for the board packet, so the board members can see what’s going on in their schools. Principals can throw their pictures and text into a simple template, which is always stored in the same place in our drive. Again, it’s about making things easy for people so they can get more done.

For me, it’s not only providing the template for the work to happen, but it’s also providing that

Honestly, this also saves us a lot of energy. Sometimes I see a lot of time and effort being wasted because we’ve inadvertently disappointed someone or made them feel less than valued. Educators are great people. We work really hard, give our hearts and souls. But we’re not always the best at accepting critical feedback. Being really clear about expectations helps us avoid that. When the targets are clear, people know whether they’ve hit them or not, so they’re not surprised when they receive that feedback. That gives us a common language and allows us to move forward in a way that’s safe and secure, with no surprises.

Internal communication goes beyond your principals—you have to keep all your staff members in the loop. What systems do you have in place to do that?

In my district, I’m working on predictable cycles of communication. Let me give an example of what that might look like. I’ve really tried to get into a cycle where each day of the week brings some tidbit of information. So on Monday, it might just be a rise-and-shine motivation. On Tuesday, it might be a tip of the day. On Wednesday, we might think about wellness. By Thursday, I might be thinking about an instructional strategy, and by Friday, I might be thinking about how to move this all together into a cohesive package and connect the dots. I have done this with some success by providing

information in small doses so that people are not overwhelmed. I don’t want the situation or issue to seem so large that they can’t chunk it down.

The other thing we’ve been working on is having one place to find everything. A huge personal goal of mine has been establishing places where people can always come to find accurate information. Then, we can trickle that information out over and over, but always redirect people back to those spaces they can trust. For example, we’ve been working on an employee intranet—a private side of our webpage to keep that information all in one spot. So if you’re an employee, you would be able to find info about HR, curriculum, IT, all in that one place. I think that would be a huge win.

This isn’t just helpful for my staff; as the communicator, this structure keeps me grounded. I can provide doses of information, then have this written history to point people back to.

QSuccessful internal communication has to go both ways. What opportunities do you give staff to communicate with you?

AI really do try to get as many voices to the table as possible. Just last week, we had what I call a “listening post,” where staff members come in to brainstorm ideas for what needs to change next school year. People advocate for what they believe we should move forward on and what they think will make the most impact on our other goals. Then, they basically get to come to some consensus and vote on priorities. I can share that data with my principals, and as we make decisions, we’ll be aware of what the rest of the staff thinks will move the needle most. Those ideas will surface in the principals’ plans for their schools the following year.

In our most recent conversations, the issues that came up were belonging, connectedness, and workflow—and I felt really good about that because those are things we’re already working on. We’ve been using tools and resources like Apptegy’s Rooms to help people stay connected, and we’ve also been working on that private side of our webpage so people can easily retrieve information and improve their workflows.

QHow does having strong internal communication improve your relationships with staff members?

AIt shows people that we respect them and their time. People—including our teachers and staff—aren’t just looking for information. Their time is minimal, so they’re trying to consume that information quickly and find out, Is this what I need or not? Am I in the right ballpark? So when our communications are in a place of strategic alignment, it makes people feel like we respect their time, which impacts morale and the overall attitudes of our teachers.

When you think about it, time is really the only currency in our school systems. Good use of time promotes so much efficiency because then we’re not having to backtrack or repeat anything. Strong communication is just about expediting our ability to provide services. Internal communication really is the best use of our time—because it saves us time.

What your brand’s structure has to do with your district’s goals

By Marie Kressin

At SchoolCEO, when we talk about branding, we’re often referring to your district’s high-level reputation. But sometimes it’s necessary to get into the weeds, to take a close look at the details of your brand—the logos, names, images, colors, and anything else that represents your organization—and assess their consistency.

When entering a new district, school leaders often find themselves inheriting a brand—and sometimes, that brand is in a state of disarray. If that’s the case for you, you aren’t alone. And chances are you’re already thinking about how to move your district toward brand alignment.

In the marketing world, conversations about brand consistency and alignment center around the concept of brand architecture. Put simply, brand architecture is the structure of an organization’s brand(s). Understanding brand architecture better will give you the language and frameworks necessary to streamline your strategy and bring your district’s brand into order.

House of Brands

First, let’s talk about the house of brands structure, in which several sub-brands exist under the umbrella of a parent brand.

When was the last time you bought something from Procter & Gamble Co.? Not sure? What about the last time you bought Gain detergent? Used a Swiffer mop? Brushed your teeth with Crest toothpaste? P&G is the parent brand to dozens of sub-brands ranging from fabric care to razors. Their brand architecture falls squarely in the house of brands category. One house—P&G—contains multiple different sub-brands, all of which have their own logos and are visually distinct from one another.

In the context of education, a house of brands structure means that in addition t o the district’s overarching brand, every school has its own branding and logo. The schools are the sub-brands, and the district is the parent brand.

The house of brands structure is common in districts with individual campuses that offer unique opportunities—like STEM-focused high schools or performing arts academies. Providing space for sub-brands to develop and flourish empowers individual school sites to market these kinds of programs better. That’s because distinct visual assets like logos, color palettes, and typography allow schools to differentiate themselves from other campuses in the district. And differentiation is a key component of marketing.

The house of brands architecture is also common for districts with multiple buildings at each level or districts that span a large geographic area. In both circumstances, it’s likely that community members identify more with their specific schools than with the district as a whole, so it makes sense for each individual campus to have its own brand identity. Such is the case for Putnam City Schools in Oklahoma.

“There isn’t a ‘City of Putnam City,’ so to speak,” says Jeff Bardach, former communications director for Putnam City Schools. “We’re a really large district in terms of square miles, and our actual school sites are within three different cities— Warr Acres, Bethany, and Oklahoma City. And all those cities actually have their own school systems.”

Because the district’s schools are so spread out—and so mixed in with other local districts—it can be difficult to maintain one unified identity. “It’s the individual schools that the students and families are most familiar with,” Bardach says. “That’s where they are every day.” And that’s why each individual school in the district has its own brand.

James L. Dennis Elementary School uses the color blue, and their mascot is the Dolphins. Kenneth Cooper Middle School uses the color gold, and they’re the Cougars. Putnam City North High School uses burgundy, and they’re the Panthers. Each school has its own identity. “Then, what we’ve tried to do is come behind that and build the culture of the district,” Bardach explains.

“When I first got to this district, I did a site visit at all 27 schools, and some of them didn’t have any district-branded imagery outside their buildings,” Bardach tells us. “Someone could House of Brands

drive down the road and, if they didn’t know any better, assume they’re looking at an Oklahoma City public school.” So they started flying district-branded flags outside of every Putnam City school and hung large posters of the district logo in each building’s office lobby. “We don’t want to take away from the individual identities of the schools,” says Bardach. “We’re just trying to add that district brand, too. It’s still Rollingwood Elementary, but it’s also part of Putnam City Schools.”

According to Bardach, the district’s next step is to standardize logos, mascots, and colors for each sub-brand. That can be the difficult part of maintaining a house of brands structure—there are multiple brand guidelines to build and guard. However, if you’re looking to grow pride at each of your schools, develop each campus’s identity, and lean into community relationships at the building level, the house of brands structure just might be the framework you need.

Branded House

Whether or not your district uses Google Workspace, you’ve probably heard of Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Calendar, and Gmail. Google is a branded house. Every sub-brand is a reiteration of the parent brand.

In the education sector, if you take the branded house approach, then your district brand is the only brand. There are no separate brand guidelines for each building. The elementary school’s letterhead uses the exact same logo as the high school’s. The point is to establish consistency across all school sites. This is the strategy used by Jefferson West USD 340 in Kansas.

“Everyone around us was growing,” says Jason Crawford, superintendent of Jefferson West. “We had a lot of brand confusion, and we were seeing that radiate through the system in a bigger way. Kids didn’t have a central focus. There wasn’t a culture to get behind.” And that’s why Jefferson West undertook a major brand overhaul. Not only did they conduct a full-scale rebrand, but they took the time to listen to their stakeholders, to create a unified identity together, and to then share the importance of that unified identity both internally and externally. “We have the capacity to grow,” Crawford says. “But we need to tell our story.”

According to Crawford, Jefferson West had historically been the premier school in the area. “ West is best , that was the tagline,” he tells us. But over time, the district’s identity had

weakened in the broader community. “I use the analogy of a Corvette sitting in the garage,” says Crawford. “It’s been sitting there for a long time. It looks beautiful, but, man, when you roll it out and open the hood, you discover all the damage the mice have done over time.”

With new open enrollment laws sweeping across Kansas, Crawford and his leadership team knew it was time to invest in the district’s identity. In order to remain competitive with surrounding systems—in terms of both student and teacher recruitment—they needed to make their mission known in the broader community. Having one unified, guarded brand allowed them to do just that.

But the benefits of a branded house approach don’t end with displaying the same logo on every school’s website. Developing one well thought out brand system led Jefferson West to launch other initiatives like “Family Fridays.” On these days, staff and students are encouraged to reflect on the core values at the heart of the district’s brand. The district releases a post online that unpacks one of their values, and anyone who wears their Tiger Paw T-shirt is entered into a drawing for a gift card donated by a member of the community. “We talk about those core values to build culture, to build our brand, and to build a community understanding of who we are,” Crawford says.

Of course, if you’re an incredibly large district, it might not make sense to try and keep every single campus aligned with your district brand. In fact, trying to keep that many people on board the same ship may prove disastrous. But if, like Jefferson West, you’re trying to build a strong presence in your community—if you’re looking to unite behind one image, to speak with one voice—the branded house

Branded House

approach may be the way to go. Just make sure you have some really solid brand guidelines to fall back on. Jefferson s guidelines, for example, touch on everything from their “commandments of typography” to common errors with logo usage.

Blended House

Let’s consider for a moment that what’s best for your district might fall somewhere in between the branded house and house of brands approaches. Fortunately, in the world of marketing, there is something known as a hybrid brand architecture, or a blended house. This structure melds together what works best about the two approaches we’ve unpacked so far.

The Coca-Cola Company is a great example of the blended house approach. One of Coca-Cola’s sub-brands is also called Coca-Cola, but they have other sub-brands, too, like Fanta, Dasani, and Powerade. The purpose of the blended house strategy is to make space for both flexibility and unity.

Many mid-sized school districts might benefit from the blended house structure. These districts often have several elementary schools and middle schools, but only one high school. If the district is the Coca-Cola Company, then the high school is the Coca-Cola sub-brand, while one of their elementary schools is Fanta and another is Dasani.

Taking the blended house approach to brand alignment often means finding creative ways to strike a balance between versatility and harmony. Take, for example, Hempstead ISD in Texas, where individual school sites have their own unique brands, but those brands are also clearly related. They’re all aligned under the district’s umbrella.

“When I first came in, none of the different logos, seals, or mascots were consistent,” says Valonia Walker, Hempstead ISD’s chief communications officer. So Walker initiated a rebranding project to help strengthen the district’s brand. “At Hempstead ISD, we’re all Bobcats,” Walker says, “but I wanted to see a progression of the Bobcat across school sites. I wanted to show the transition between the different campuses.”

The logo for the district’s early childhood center, for example, is a baby Bobcat. “They don’t really know what it means to be a Bobcat just yet. It’s their first introduction,” Walker explains. At the elementary campus, it’s still a baby Bobcat, but now the mascot is wearing a T-shirt. “Those students are going to

the football games,” she says. “They’re seeing older students coming over to read to them wearing their jerseys. So they’re getting excited about what it means to be a Bobcat.” At the middle and high school levels, athletics are introduced, so Walker wanted those Bobcats to look fierce—the fiercest being the high school’s mascot.

“We want our campuses to take ownership and have pride,” Walker says. “We want to nurture that at each grade level. You don’t just get pride when you get to high school. We want them to be proud of their whole community and proud of their specific schools.”

To ensure that each school feels empowered to manage their own brand—while also remaining compliant with the district’s overarching brand—Hempstead ISD has made their branding guidelines readily available online. “People go rogue in a minute,” Walker says. “They’ll take that Bobcat, and it will become a cougar all of a sudden.” Hempstead ISD has counteracted that tendency by sharing color codes, branded fonts, and logo iterations online for each school site, as well as for the overarching district brand.

No matter what brand architecture your district uses, understanding the structure of your brand will help you maintain control—and that is everything. “Before we did this, there was too much room for people to tell our story for us. So this is our way of taking it back,” Walker says. “This is our way of coming back stronger, of saying that this is our brand, this is our voice, this is who we are, who we want to be, and where we’re going.”

THE REBRAND BANDWAGON

How to get your employees on board with your district’s rebrand

By Marie Kressin

We’ve talked to enough school leaders to know that tradition is an important part of a thriving school community. We also know it’s equally important for schools to have an eye on the future. Rebranding is a unique opportunity to unite both the past and the future under the umbrella of a well-developed brand. It’s a chance to reaffirm the values you’ve stood for over the years while looking ahead to the kind of institution you hope to become.

Rebranding means more than just updating your image. It might require anything from overhauling your district’s logo, colors, and tagline to taking a hard look at your core values. Put simply, rebranding means taking control of your district’s everevolving identity. And—as is the case with any conversation about your district’s identity—it’s important to think carefully about how to bring your staff on board.

But don’t worry. If you haven’t had a chance to think about how to get your staff on board with your rebrand, you aren’t alone. As business communication expert Colin Mitchell writes in Harvard Business Review, “in most companies, internal marketing is done poorly, if at all.” Very few executives consider what it means to, as Mitchell says, “sell the brand inside.” But that’s exactly what it will take to move your district forward together.

So what’s your strategy for communicating how your district’s brand powers the work happening in your schools? To help get you thinking, we’ll share stories from districts that have rebranded or are thinking about rebranding, and what they’ve learned about getting—and keeping—their employees on board and on brand.

TrueNorth Educational Cooperative 804 Highland Park, Illinois

TrueNorth Educational Cooperative was established around 1960 when school districts formed a joint agreement to ensure that their children with disabilities had access to a quality education. Until recently, TrueNorth was known as the Northern Suburban Special Education District. But after moving through a strategic planning process, the district found itself with new mission and vision statements that focused on inclusive communities—and that no longer matched the district’s original name and brand.

“We were branding ourselves as a special education district,” says Superintendent Dr. Kurt Schneider, “but the field continues to transition away from self-contained environments for children with disabilities into environments where all students belong together, so organizations like ours are changing their practice.”

TrueNorth wanted to challenge existing narratives around educating students with disabilities—so they dropped “special education” from the cooperative’s name. “Our focus was to remove a label that is well-intentioned but has the potential to marginalize students and their families,” adds Mary Morgan Ryan, assistant superintendent for technology, communication, and data services.

Glens Falls City School District Glens Falls, New York

In the fall of 2022, the New York State Education Department issued a decision that required all districts with Native American mascots to find replacements. Glens Falls, uninterested in pointing fingers or challenging the directive, immediately got to work. Upon looking into the district’s history, “what we found is we weren’t always the Indians,” says Superintendent Dr. Krislynn Dengler. Changing their mascot became a way for the district to both reckon with their history and think carefully about what they wanted to be known for in the future.

“Some alumni and students have very strong feelings about the Glens Falls Indians as an identity,” says Dengler, “but, given the cultural makeup of our district, that’s not quite right. It’s not the Indian image they’re identifying with, so what is it? That’s how we came up with our four pillars: Unity, Support, Grit, and Passion.” It’s also how they eventually landed on their new mascot: the Glens Falls Black Bears.

Portage Public Schools

Portage, Michigan

Portage Public Schools has not yet rebranded, but they’re hoping to soon—and they’re already starting to do the kind of thinking necessary to make that happen. Portage began as a consolidation of several one-room schoolhouses, so they’ve been around for a while. In fact, they just celebrated their 100th anniversary.

“It was important for us to not only honor the past, but to respect where we are now and what we have to be mindful of as we move into the next century of our existence,” says Superintendent Mark Bielang. As part of that work, Portage Public Schools has identified the six values (Accountability, Respect, Compassion, Honesty, Integrity, and Growth) that will guide them into the future.

Clarify the why.

Being clear about your goals and intentions for rebranding is paramount when it comes to communicating with your staff. If you don’t give them a reason to care about the new brand, they probably won’t.

TrueNorth’s leadership team understood this well when they embarked on their rebranding process. It took them four rounds of concepts before they landed on TrueNorth Educational Cooperative, a name that, according to Assistant Superintendent Morgan Ryan, “strengthened our identity as an organization that’s all about learners, including students with disabilities—not just about students with disabilities in isolation.” The TrueNorth team thought through every detail of their new name and logo, even down to which direction the new logo’s compass is pointing. In fact, the compass as a whole is meant to symbolize the varied learning supports at the heart of special education. “Everyone’s on their own journey,” Morgan Ryan says. “My true north may not be your true north.”

For Superintendent Schneider, the real connection between TrueNorth’s rebrand and their core mission lies in the simple phrase educational cooperative . “An educational cooperative can be any student and any family,” he tells us. “The name can absorb whatever we need to do. What’s good for students with disabilities is good for everybody, so opening up the work of the organization to include all individuals is huge. I don’t know who will be superintendent in 10 years, but our decision has given them permission to do whatever the community needs us to do. We made a decision that aligns to our work today and upholds it well into the future.”

Digging this deep during a rebranding process will make it ea sier to explain—or even defend—any final decisions your leadership team makes. After all, you aren’t updating fonts and taglines just for fun. There’s serious thought going into your work. Being able to successfully articulate those thoughts to your internal stakeholders is key.

Glens Falls’ rebranding process gives us another way to think about this. They identified four pillars of what it means to be a member of their district: Unity, Support, Grit, and Passion. Then, they referred back to these pillars every step of the way. No idea moved forward unless it could connect back to these pillars. It gave their conversations a framework: We should be the [proposed mascot] because… As Superintendent Dengler tells us: “Everything had to have a because. We were always looking at the ‘why’ behind the suggestions.”

Build ownership.

Communication and buy-in are two sides of the same coin. The better you communicate, the more buy-in you’ll have. The more buy-in you have, the more receptive your internal stakeholders will be to communication. And one great way to build buy-in is through ownership.

Ownership can be tricky. You want to invite as many people into the process as possible, but you don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen. So how can you build ownership at all levels of your organization without letting the process get unwieldy? By recognizing that ownership is a network.

Here’s what we mean: Teachers talk. Building leaders talk. Students talk. Families talk. When you invite a teacher to

participate in the rebranding process, by extension, you’re including their students and the district families they might know. It’s important to think carefully about who you include—but why not encourage those you’ve brought into the process to gather opinions from their inner circles as well? That way, you can be strategic about who participates while also taking into account the opinions of a wide network.

Take TrueNorth, for example. “We worked really hard to include stakeholder input all the way through,” says Morgan Ryan. “We had student voice. We had family voice. We had key member district voices. We had our own staff voice.” As they moved through each round of concepts, TrueNorth consistently “gauged the temperature of all stakeholders,” Schneider says. They found a way to push their boundaries without ever pushing anyone away.

Making space for all your stakeholders’ opinions will allow them to feel like the rebrand is something they’re a part of rather than something that’s happening to them. And like we said, building internal ownership doesn’t just mean including your teachers; it means including everyone. Glens Falls developed a student cabinet early on in their process, and Portage Public Schools did something similar when it came to identifying their district’s core values. “Adult conversations changed once student voices were introduced into the mix,” says Bielang.

It’s never been enough to just tell your employees what to do. It’s far more motivating to invite them into the process whenever possible. That way, once the rebrand is finished, they’ll believe in it. Otherwise, you’ll put work into updating your brand and shifting your identity—but nothing will change. One of TrueNorth’s students put it best during a round of feedback: “If you’re going to do it, then do it, and change your practice.”

A rebrand is more than a new name or logo; it’s a whole new vision. And the more opportunities for ownership that you provide, the more likely your employees will see it as a vision worth getting behind.

Sell the brand inside your schools.

You’ve probably thought about what it means to market your schools, but have you thought about what it means to market inside your schools? Now that you have a clear understanding of the why behind your rebrand and how to build ownership throughout the process, let’s talk communication specifics.

Who is your staff hearing from?

More than likely, your employees get most of their information from building-level leaders, from one another, and sometimes even from students. Portage Public Schools, for example, wanted to maintain staff involvement, but there was no way for the district leadership team to handle all those touch points on their own. “We’re constantly rolling this out through our building-level leaders,” Bielang tells us. Students can also be excellent brand ambassadors; after all, they get more face time with teachers than just about anyone. “Our students sold this,” says Dengler about Glens Falls’ rebrand. “They became liaisons in the community because they were so embedded in the process.”

When it came time for TrueNorth to roll out their rebrand, they understood that one of the best ways to communicate with their staff was through other employees. They invited the Communication Innovation Team, a volunteer-based team of staff members, to spearhead the rebrand’s internal rollout. The Communication Innovation Team developed talking points for how to introduce the rebrand, then practiced putting the talking points into their own words. “We had dress rehearsals,” Morgan Ryan says, “and we asked them to deliver the message, but in a way that was authentic to them.”

How can your staff learn more?

It’s true that your employees will get most of their information about your rebrand through word-of-mouth. But what if they want to learn more? This is where having top-notch, accessible materials comes into play.

Portage Public Schools has yet to initiate their official rebranding process, but they have already completed one of the most important steps: thinking critically about their district’s identity. They’ve identified district values, developed

It’s never been enough to just tell your employees what to do. It’s far more motivating to invite them into the process whenever possible.

an equity statement, and created an aspirational statement. They know it’s important to communicate all of this throughout the district, so they’ve also developed a clean, comprehensive graphic that clearly depicts the relationships between their values, their equity statement, and their aspirational statement. They can easily send it in an email, print it out, or share it online.

Speaking of sharing things online, that’s exactly what TrueNorth did with their updated brand guidelines and assets. These are all located on their website’s brand toolkit landing page. “That way, people who are using our brand aren’t tempted to just clip the logo from the upper corner of our website. They can actually download the high-quality images and use those,” Morgan Ryan tells us.

How can you prevent negativity?

Building ownership all the way through the rebranding process and clarifying why your district is rebranding in the first place are both great ways to prevent negativity. After all, if your staff doesn’t understand why the rebrand is happening, or if they feel like they haven’t had an opportunity to make their voices heard, they’re much more likely to resist the change.

When Glens Falls updated their mascot to the Black Bears, “there were definitely people who had strong opinions about it,” Dengler says. “But they could choose to be engaged. When you empower people to have a say, it really improves the outcome.”

Another way to prevent negativity is to be as consistently transparent as possible. “Knowledge is power,” Dengler tells us. “When everybody feels like they know what’s going on, then they are more apt to get behind it.” For Glens Falls, this meant consistent communication and opportunities for feedback at all levels of the organization. It also meant frequent documentation. “On our website, you can actually see the historical cataloging of everything we did,” Dengler says, referencing all the steps they took to decide on the new district mascot.

How can you get your staff fired up?

Every district we spoke with agreed that getting staff on board with a rebrand starts with building their enthusiasm. TrueNorth, for example, rolled out their rebrand in a session planned by their internal volunteer-led Communication Innovation Team. Bielang tells us that Portage Public Schools

is currently working on a way to integrate their newly decided-upon values into a teacher recognition award.

At a pep rally, Glens Falls played a high-quality video showcasing how students live out Unity, Support, Grit, and Passion every day—at football games, art competitions, and more. As the video played, a student ran across the stage in the district’s new Black Bear mascot costume, leading cheers from the audience. Then, at the end of a countdown, Glens Falls’ new logo broke onto the screen. At the same time, the district’s student committee stood up and revealed the new logo on their matching T-shirts. The crowd went wild, united by an identity—one that connects them to the best parts of who they’ve always been while pushing them to grow together into a shared vision of the future.

It’s important to remember that rebranding is not where the story ends, and it’s not even where a new story begins. It’s the connective tissue between where your district has been and where it hopes to go. No matter your goals for your district’s rebrand, you can’t meet them alone. You need your staff, and you need them to believe in the work. It’s that solidarity, that collaborative power, that will keep your district moving forward.

By Corey Whaley

Think back to your first job right out of college. Whether you started in education or another field, chances are you still remember exactly who your first boss was—their demeanor, their leadership style, the way they handled stressful situations. It’s impossible to work for some one and not walk away with a lasting impression of their values and motivations. If your boss talked down to you when you needed support, you’ll always remember both how it made you feel and how it affected your work. But if they heard you out and provided the support you needed, you’ll remember that, too—and you’ll remember how it im pacted your buy-in and willingness to trust their decisions.

even more simply: Your personal brand is who you are and how you lead. The better your stakeholders know you, the more they will trust you and support your leadership.

--

At SchoolCEO, we’ve discussed personal branding in the past, focusing our attention on how you’re sharing that brand with your broader community. But how are you communicating your personal brand to your staff? How does your team see you as a person and leader? If we asked a teacher in your district to describe your leader ship style, what would they tell us?

W e’ve talked to enough school leaders to know that tradition is an important part of a thriving school community. We also know it’s equally important for schools to have an eye on the future. Rebranding is a unique opportunity to unite both the past and the future under the umbrella of a well-developed brand. It’s a chance to reaffirm the values you’ve stood for over the years while looking ahead to the kind of institution you hope to become.

-

In school leadership, there may be nothing so important as communicating a clear and consistent personal brand. We know that can mean different things to different peo ple—but suffice it to say we’re not talking about social media or influencer-style personas here. When we talk about personal brand, we mean it in the deepest sense of the term.

Rebranding means more than just updating your image. It might require anything from overhauling your district’s logo, colors, and tagline to taking a hard look at your core values. Put simply, rebranding means taking control of your district’s ever-evolving identity. And—as is the case with any conversation about your district’s identity—it’s important to think carefully about how to bring your staff on board.

But don’t worry. If you haven’t had a chance to think about how to get your staff on board with your rebrand, you aren’t alone. According to Harvard Business Review, “in most companies, internal marketing is done poorly, if at all.” Very few executives consider what it means to, as HBR says, “sell the brand inside.” But that’s exactly what it will take to move your district forward together.

Personal branding, as we define it, is the intentional story you’re telling about yourself, built around your core values and acting as a guidepost for your leadership. To put it

There’s no doubt that who you are as a leader deeply impacts the success of your schools. In fact, our 2023 research study “What Teachers Want” found that school leadership is one of the top three factors teachers consider when applying for jobs. But internal personal branding isn’t just about knowing who you are; it’s about knowing how to share that with everyone working in your district. By successfully communicating your personal brand internally, you can inspire your staff’s best work and instill a culture of trust that permeates your schools at every level.

So what’s your strategy for communicating how your district’s brand powers the work happening in your schools? To help get you thinking, we’ll share stories from districts that have rebranded or are thinking about rebranding and what they’ve learned about getting—and keeping—their employees on board and on brand.

Take Out the Guesswork

Just as it is with your district brand as a whole, if you’re not telling your own story, someone will tell it for you. Your staff shouldn’t have to do any guesswork; they should know exactly who you are and how you approach your work. Gone are the days when being aloof and unapproachable were accepted styles of leadership. Today, when it comes to winning the buy-in you need to run a successful district, transparency reigns supreme.

Be vulnerable.

We know, we know—words like “vulnerable” often trigger skepticism these days. It’s easy to be suspicious of terms like this when they start being tossed around in the zeitgeist without sincerity or follow-through. But the true power of vulnerability—especially for school leaders—simply can’t be ignored. Committing to vulnerability in a thoughtful and intentional way can supercharge your relationships with staff and help create a culture that thrives under any circumstance. But what does thoughtful, authentic vulnerability really look like in practice?

Researcher and storyteller Brené Brown says “vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.” We don’t have to tell you that these are all essential to sustaining a student-centered culture—so your internal personal brand should be centered around expressing these qualities in your everyday, observable work as a leader. But how do you do that? It’s simple, but not always easy: Be your whole self.

It’s all about making sure you’re showing authenticity and n uance, joy and struggle. The more your employees can relate to you, the more they’ll support and be inspired by you. Writing for Fast Company, leadership communication consultant Deborah Grayson Riegel advises, “Share information about your life outside of work. Let people know what you wrestle with, as well as what you celebrate, personally and professionally.”

It’s not necessary to overshare your private life with employees, but relating to them on a human level helps them see you as a whole person, not just as someone who sits behind a big desk and makes big decisions. So confide in that new teacher about a struggle you had in your first classroom. High-five that food service worker when their favorite team wins the big game. Tell that bus driver who’s a new homeowner about your experience buying your first house. The more you show them who you are, the more they’ll trust you to steer them in the right direction.

Model your values.

An integral part of communicating your personal brand internally is making sure the values you tout are actually motivating your behavior. It’s not enough to tell your teachers and staff who you are; you have to show them.

“Actions really do speak louder than words,” says Dr. Laura Blessing, superintendent of Ohio’s Miamisburg City Schools. She describes her internal personal brand as energetic, down-to-earth, and focused on students first. But it’s hard to make sure everyone sees that without a little intentionality. “We have about 700 staff members in our district, and I can’t have a personal connection with every single one,” she says. “But I still want them to know what I’m about—so I’ve got to model that through my leadership style.”

One way Blessing does this is by serving her school community in any capacity she can. “I’ve been a substitute teacher, served in cafeterias, helped at sporting events, and I volunteer in the community,” she tells us. “I think when they see me, they know that I’m not just there to make an appearance. I’m there to be a part of the experience for our students and the community. I serve 24/7—and it doesn’t bother me. That’s just the all-in commitment that a school leader has to have in 2023.”

Superint endent Dr. Laura Blessing has made joy part of her personal brand—and sometimes, that means dressing like a Minion. (Photo courtesy of Miamisburg City Schools)

Build Relationships to Foster Trust

According to Marcel Schwantes, leadership coach and host of the Love in Action podcast, trust is the backbone of successful leadership. “Employees and leaders who trust one another learn to be comfortable being open to one another about their failures, weaknesses, disappointments and even fears,” Schwantes writes. A staff that isn’t afraid to ask you for help or express their concerns, that trusts you to always be honest and supportive, will follow you anywhere.

But what do we really mean when we say “trust”—and how do you go about showing your internal stakeholders that you’re worthy of theirs?

Dr. Andrew Dolloff, author of the book The Trust Imperative, is in his 10th year as superintendent of Yarmouth School Department in Maine. He defines trust as “the confidence or belief others have in your reliability, integrity, and competence.” Maintaining trust internally, then, starts and ends with how your employees perceive you as a leader—so communicating an internal personal brand that encourages this kind of trust is extremely important. We believe the best way to embody that brand is by building relationships with your staff and teachers.

Dr. John Sanville, superintendent of Unionville-Chadds Ford School District in Pennsylvania, says you don’t have to give away all your time or make enormous commitments to keep relationships strong. “It’s not about the grandeur of your interactions,” he says. “It’s the frequency. You have to do a lot of little things over time.” Sanville will often send a teacher an article that reminds him of a conversation they’ve had or message a staff member about their favorite band coming to town. “It doesn’t take a lot of time, but I have to listen to you. I have to understand what you find important to tend to that relationship,” he says.

Be approachable.

When it comes to branding yourself as a trustworthy leader, Blessing says one word comes to mind: approachability. Whether she’s at a staff meeting or visiting a classroom, she tries to make sure everyone in the district is comfortable when she walks in. In fact, Blessing makes it a priority to meet with all 13 teams at Miamisburg Middle School regularly, without their principal present. “I just sit down with them for 30 minutes, and I listen,” she says.

For Blessing, interactions like this communicate a clear personal brand of approachability and receptiveness, but also a willingness to be part of the work on the ground. “I do feel like all of them have a comfort level with me,” she adds. “A team will call me and say they need someone to cover a class— and that’s what it’s really all about. If I say I’m committed to the district and they need me, I want them to pick up the phone and call. Everyone I encounter in the district is on my team. If someone calls me boss, I say, You’re my boss .”

Make time for teachers and staff.

Showing up has a huge impact on your employees. When you make time for your teachers and staff, you foster the kind of trusting relationships necessary for running great schools. And it shouldn’t just be scheduled or routine appearances. It could be sitting in on department meetings, attending a teacher’s retirement party, calling to congratulate a staff member on the birth of their child—you name it. If there’s an opportunity to be present for your staff, it’s well worth it.

In his district, Sanville embodies a similar personal brand of accessibility and connection to his staff’s work. “You can’t be above what you ask others to do,” he tells us. “You must continually strive to care about the people who work for you and with you, to truly want to see them be the best they can be. Then you celebrate their successes.” When your internal stakeholders see you cheering them on, when they see you as a supporter and not just as their boss, your collective mission gets that much stronger.

Collaborate and Listen

We’ve often heard from teachers that they feel like decisions are being made from the top down without their input. Even if you’re holding informational meetings or sending out email surveys, it’s easy for staff to feel disconnected from decisions that directly impact their work. In the open response

Photo courtesy of Unionville-Chadds Ford School District

portion of our study “What Teachers Want,” one participant wrote that teachers “want to know if they are seen as partners in the culture of the building or as minions to the administrators.”

The fact is, maintaining a culture where everyone on your staff feels seen and heard means affirming your stance as a true collaborator and listener. Your staff, especially teachers, need to know how much you believe in them. It’s not just the kind, supportive thing to do—it’s also the most impactful.

In his 2009 book Visible Learning , researcher Dr. John Hattie synthesized over 800 meta-analyses of research that explored the impact of teaching on student learning. He pinpointed 133 factors affecting student learning, but he updated this list in 2023 after even more research. What he found was that collective teacher efficacy—teachers’ belief in their own ability to positively impact students—actually has a greater effect on student outcomes than any other factor. So don’t just hear your teachers out. Show them you’re really listening by putting their expertise to work and giving them ownership over your district’s success.

Be receptive to feedback.

Nobody likes a leader who never listens—or who says they’re listening but is never responsive to feedback. Proving to your staff that you really do believe in them means openly taking their feedback to heart.

When Blessing meets with those 13 teams at her district’s middle school, they know they can say whatever they want and still be heard. “They can be brutally honest with

me—even if it’s a tense situation and I can tell they’re upset,” Blessing says. “I just listen, and I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

In Unionville-Chadds Ford, Sanville has actually trained teachers and staff on feedback. “It’s not just about having a common language,” Sanville explains, “it’s having common behaviors. So we understand what behaviors promote success and great leadership. If everybody knows that, you can point to it. That’s very powerful in terms of promoting a positive climate and a healthy culture.”

A big part of effectively empowering your teachers is treating them like the experts they are and asking them directly for their input. “As a leader, you should recognize that once you share your point of view, others are likely to see it as final, binding, or immutable,” Riegel writes. “If you want others to experience you as open to new ideas, then you should actively invite them into the conversations.” She even advises leaders to directly ask for pushback from their employees.

Michael C. Bush, CEO of global research and analytics firm Great Place to Work, says asking for feedback is the ultimate way to show respect for your staff. “It’s so rare to be in conversations like that, and they really stand out for people,” he tells us. “What a great listener does is they ask questions. They’re curious, which is a sign of humility. By asking questions, they’re demonstrating that they don’t know everything. They’re seeking and searching, and they think you might help.”

Photo courtesy of Unionville-Chadds Ford School District

Own your mistakes.

In Dale Carnegie’s bestselling book How to Win Friends & Influence People , one of the many principles he outlines is sharing one’s mistakes, especially in situations where you’ll be giving feedback to others. “Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person,” he writes. As far as personal branding goes, you want to be viewed as someone who is humble, who still has the ability to evolve—a listener who learns.

Owning up to your missteps empowers your teachers to show the same humility and openness that you’ve shown them. “Tell your colleagues about skills, domain expertise, or even life lessons you’ve learned recently so they know that you, too, are a work in progress,” advises Riegel. Sanville agrees. “If you make a mistake, you have to own it,” he says.

It all goes back to vulnerability, but it’s also about being strategic. If your personal brand is soured by a need to be right all the time or an unwillingness to receive feedback, you’ll start to lose trust at every level. “Vulnerable leaders have no qualms about not knowing everything,” writes Schwantes. “They don’t pretend to be ‘the expert.’ They leverage the skills of their knowledge workers on the frontlines and ask for their help.”

Keep students at the forefront of your personal brand.

No matter who you are as a school leader, we’re betting you got into education because you want to help kids. It can be easy to simply manage from the top down, but keeping your work grounded in how it impacts students will help you communicate an internal personal brand that inspires and motivates.

Joy is a well-known part of Blessing’s personal brand, and she takes every opportunity to communicate that across her district—not just because it’s fun, but because that joy trickles down to the students. Last Halloween, she and nearly 20 staff members from the district office visited every elementary school dressed as Minions and passed out candy. Whether she’s in her yellow shirt, beanie, and goggles or she’s dressed as a Christmas elf, Blessing’s down-to-earth leadership style welcomes staff and students to find joy in being who they are. It all goes back to living a personal brand that’s centered around students and every experience they have in your schools.

“If we’re not thinking first and foremost about how each decision we make impacts students, then we really aren’t doing what’s best for them. We aren’t keeping them as the focus of our job,” Blessing says. “And keeping students as the focus—that’s where the joy comes from.”

Photo courtesy of Miamisburg City Schools

From Classroom to Community

Moving your teachers from isolation to connection

By Melissa Hite

In her first year teaching high school, Dr. Amy L. Eva found herself lying in the dark on the cold, concrete floor of her tiny office, literally hiding from the world outside. As she shares in her book Surviving Teacher Burnout , she barely interacted with her fellow educators at all during that first year. Her principal only visited her classroom a couple of times. “I was so disconnected, and so overwhelmed,” she tells SchoolCEO. “And so desperately lonely.”

Unfortunately, if you’ve spent any time in the classroom yourself, that feeling may resonate with you. Though teachers spend much of their time interacting with students, they typically get very little time to engage with the other adults in their school buildings. According to the 2022 Merrimack College Teacher Survey, the typical teacher spends 54 hours per week working, but only two of those hours—less than 4%—are spent collaborating with colleagues. It’s no wonder so many educators feel isolated.

However, this isn’t a problem that’s exclusive to education—it’s a broader societal trend. In May 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an 85-page advisory on loneliness and isolation, declaring the issue a national “epidemic.” The research presented in the advisory is staggering. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of U.S. adults said they experienced loneliness; in 2022, only 39% said they felt very close to others emotionally.

Years after that day on the concrete floor, Eva is now the associate education director at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, where she studies teacher mental health and well-being. As she puts it, “we are in a loneliness crisis.” Protecting your district from the fallout will take an intentional culture shift toward connection.

Why Teacher Loneliness Matters

As a school leader, you want the best for your employees. You obviously want them to be happy and healthy as well as productive and effective. But you might be surprised to learn just how much health and well-being are intertwined with connection.

According to research published in American Psychologist, a lack of social connection poses as great a risk to our physical health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Less surprisingly, loneliness and isolation also have severe effects on our mental health—but the opposite is also true. The more social connection we have in our lives, the less likely we are to develop conditions like depression and anxiety.

Fostering more social connections won’t just benefit your teachers on an individual level; it will also benefit your district. Stronger connections between teachers correlate with better outcomes for kids. According to a study from the American Journal of Education, students achieve at higher levels in schools with a strong sense of “professional community.”

Research from mental health startup BetterUp suggests that lonelier employees feel lower job satisfaction, switch jobs more often, and are more likely to quit. On the other hand, when your employees feel a sense of community, they’re more engaged and more likely to stay with your organization. In other words, if you want to address the ever-present problem of teacher retention, connection should be on your list of priorities.

“When people feel connected, they do better work,” says Smiley Poswolsky, a workplace belonging expert and the author of Friendship in the Age of Loneliness . “And they’re happier—not just in their work, but in their lives. So as educators and as leaders, you have a responsibility to try to move the needle toward connection.”

Rethinking Teacher Connections

Before you can understand how to strengthen relationships between teachers, you have to see where they currently stand—and where you want them to go. In his 2006 article “Improving Relationships Within the Schoolhouse,” renowned educator Roland S. Barth outlines what he sees as the four main types of connections between teachers: parallel play, adversarial relationships, congenial relationships, and collegial relationships

Many teachers, Barth argues, are stuck in a state of parallel play —much like preschoolers playing side-by-side in a sandbox. They’re performing similar activities, but “they seldom interact intentionally,” he writes. “Although in close proximity for a long period of time, each is so self-absorbed, so totally engrossed in what he or she is doing, that the two of them will go on for hours working in isolation.” Parallel play is not really about connection at all; it’s just coexistence. Others are engaged in adversarial relationships: ones in which the teachers feel competitive toward one another, withhold craft knowledge from each other, or even tear each other down. Needless to say, these aren’t productive connections, either.

The other two types of relationships, however, are much more positive. Congenial relationships , Barth writes, “are personal and friendly.” Teachers with these connections grab coffee for one another, chat about their days, or give each other rides home when needed. Simply put, they’re friends. And according to Barth—and the other research we’ve cited so far—this is extremely valuable. Friends are often part of the reason we come to work in the first place. “When the alarm rings at 6:00 in the morning, the alacrity with which an educator jumps out of bed and prepares for school is directly related to the adults with whom he or she will interact that day,” he writes. “The promise of congenial relationships helps us shut off that alarm each day and arise.”

“When people feel connected, they do better work. And they’re happier— not just in their work, but in their lives. So as educators and as leaders, you have a responsibility to try to move the needle towards connection.”

But the best connections teachers can have, in Barth’s view, are collegial relationships: ones in which teachers actively collaborate, support one another professionally, and work together to improve their craft. “Schools are full of good players,” he writes. “Collegiality is about getting them to play together, about growing a professional learning community.”

More than likely, all four of these relationships show up in your schools. Your ultimate goal is to minimize parallel play and adversarial relationships, while maximizing congenial and collegial relationships.

Strategies for Strengthening Connections

So how do you move the needle toward more collegial and congenial relationships? Here are a few practical ideas.

Show them why it matters.

As you know, teachers already have a lot on their plates— and making more connections is probably not at the top of their to-do lists. In the 2022 Merrimack College Teacher Survey, when asked which one task they’d spend more time on if they could, 29% of teachers listed individual planning and preparation, and 28% listed actual teaching time. Unsurprisingly, things like professional development, administrative work, and after-school events fell much further down the list.

This is indicative of something good. Your teachers want to spend the bulk of their time on the most important part of their job: educating students. However, this means that if you want them to buy into building connections, you need to show them the value of doing so.

If you’ve spent any time studying adult learning, you know that adults are most engaged with a lesson, task, or activity when they understand why it’s relevant to them. How will building relationships with other teachers help solve the problems they’re facing in their classrooms? How could it help them become better educators?

For two high school teachers at Massachusetts’ Falmouth Public Schools, connection and collaboration have revolutionized and enriched student experiences. In 2013, AP Art teacher Jane Baker approached AP Literature teacher Lauren Kenny with a problem. “The AP Lit kids didn’t think that art students should get college credit for making artwork, which seemed easier to them than writing papers,”

Photos courtesy of Jane Baker

Baker tells us. The two educators decided that making their c lasses work together would dispel that misconception. “The goal was to create mutual respect through shared experiences,” she says.

Thanks to a grant from the Falmouth Education Foundation, Baker was planning a trip to take students to the Outer Cape to study the seal population there. She invited Kenny’s class to tag along. All students were asked to respond to the trip both in words and through art, eventually creating beautiful visual poems that incorporated seaweed paper from the beach. The trip was a rousing success.

Ever since, Kenny and Baker have collaborated on yearly grant projects that have taken students all over the Cape and beyond. These trips allow students not only to explore connections between these two disciplines, but to gain hands-on experience with broader topics like climate change. Plus, “each of these projects gives the kids an opportunity to work with students that they don’t typically have classes with,” says Kenny.

Normally, these two teachers wouldn’t have class together, either—but they treasure this unconventional partnership. “I am the only teacher of AP Literature, so there’s no one to plan with, bounce ideas off of, or commiserate with,” says Kenny. “However, this collaborative relationship with Jane connects us professionally, mentally, and emotionally. I can lean on Jane for anything, in or out of our professional partnership.”

Collegial relationships like this one are the reason to commit to a culture of connection. They can’t be forced, but given the right environment, they may emerge. “It would not make sense for an administrator to tell particular teachers to just work together,” says Baker. “But if they foster a collaborative gathering of minds and encourage teachers to work out curricula based on ideas and solutions to local issues, then people in disparate groups are bound to start collaborating.”

Incorporate time for connection into existing meetings.

As you move toward more connection, it’s also important to consider your teachers’ already overwhelming schedules. “Teachers are regularly told that they need to engage in self-care practices, but teachers don’t have much time to do anything for themselves,” Eva tells us. “It’s not helpful to tell them to add self-care to their to-do lists.” So instead of adding more meetings or after-school events in order to foster

connections, carve time for relationship-building out of th meetings you already have on the calendar.

How exactly do you do that? First, consider what aspect of your meetings really require people to be together in room—and which ones don’t. “A lot of times, when we g people together, the PowerPoints and packets and PDF come out—but a lot of that content can be delivered virtu ally,” says Poswolsky. “When people are actually together i a room, that should be a time to make a new friend, to tal about their goals for the year, to get to know each other o a deeper level.”

Of course, your weekly meetings can’t—and shouldn’t—b come purely social events. But taking just a few minutes i each meeting for connection can help teachers build commu nity and relationships without adding more to their plates. F guidance on how to do this, Eva points to the Collaborativ for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, better know as CASEL. She encourages people to incorporate CASEL’ Three Signature SEL Practices into all their meetings:

1. Welcoming activities. “Welcoming and inclusion rituals are a wonderful way to start every meeting,” Eva says. This can be as simple as an open-ended icebreaker question. “Start off a meeting with prompts like, Describe your perfect day , or, If you were an athlete or performer, what would your walk-on song be? ”

2. Engaging practices. “These can in clude pair-shares and brain breaks,” Eva explains—moments throughout the meeting to process what’s being discussed with others. If you’re asking participants to split into pairs or groups for these short discussions, be sure that teachers who are new to your district aren’t being left out of the loop. You might tap a few of your best culture ambassadors to intentionally include their new peers.

3. Optimistic closure. Make sure the meeting ends on a positive note. For example, you might ask your participants to share one takeaway or action item that they’re excited to try out.

The beauty of these practices is that they infuse your meetings with social and emotional connection without taking much time. Incorporating all three would only take about five minutes total—and even then, they’re spread out in one- or two-minute chunks. But little by little, these simple moments can go a long way toward building stronger personal (congenial) and professional (collegial) relationships among your teachers.

For more tips on building these SEL practices into your meetings, check out CASEL’s SEL Signature Practices Playbook.

Create more opportunities to share craft knowledge.

According to Barth, one of the best ways to build more collegial relationships is to promote the sharing of best practices. This is an effective way to combat the inertia of parallel play, as well as adversarial relationships. “Once the exchange of craft knowledge becomes institutionally sanctioned, educators no longer feel pretentious or in violation of a taboo by sharing their insights,” Barth writes. “A new taboo— against withholding what we know —replaces the old.”

Of course, your teachers probably already have a few official outlets to share best practices—professional learning communities, for example. But the more official opportunities you create for teachers to share their knowledge with one another, the more they’ll do so unofficially on their own time as well.

To try this out in your schools, you might put a twist on a pri vate sector strategy. At stock advising company The Motley Fool, employees often conduct short classes for colleagues on topics they know a lot about—bartending, DJ’ing, sewing, just to name a few. “We’ve had incredible fun and incredible effectiveness going out to [employees] and saying, anybody really good at something and would be interested in teaching others? ” Chief People Officer Lee Burbage tells Harvard Business Review. “Tapping into your employees and skills they may already have that they’d be excited to teach others…That makes for a great class and creates an opportunity again for them to progress and grow and meet new people.”

As is, this strategy would help you build more congenial rela tionships with your staff—but focusing it on craft knowledge

will kick it up a notch, into the realm of collegiality. Why not center a professional development session around “lightning talks,” where teachers give crash courses on techniques or strategies they’ve mastered? These topics can be super specific: things like “How to Use QR Codes in Your Instruction” or “Supporting Introverted Kids in a DiscussionBased Activity.” This kind of talk gives you multiple wins: Teachers learn more about each other, they come away with new techniques to try, and they may even discover potential opportunities for collaboration.

Model these relationships yourself.

Like any culture shift, this pivot toward connection starts with you. As Barth puts it, “You can’t lead where you won’t go.” This opens you up to a potentially difficult task: admitting that even you, as a leader, need connection. “I would encourage leaders to be open about their own struggles with loneliness,” Eva says. “When we’re lonely and isolated, we think that we’re the only ones feeling this sense of desperation. The more we know that others are struggling—and that even our leaders are struggling—the more we burst that bubble.”

Your teachers also need to see you engaging in these connection activities yourself: participating in pair-shares, answering icebreaker prompts, attending those lightning talks. If you don’t prioritize connection, your staff likely won’t, either.

As a leader, your relationships with your staff members will be different than their relationships with one another—so it’s also important to build connections with other leaders, even those outside your district. And the truth is that when you model these relationships, no one will benefit more than you. “Leadership is so profoundly isolating,” Eva says. “It can be even more isolating than teaching students. So to find that collegiality and personal connection with other superintendents or other principals is powerful.”

Of course, connections don’t happen overnight. It will take time for your staff members to build these congenial and collegial relationships. So be patient. These strategies won’t create instantaneous connection, but they will lay the groundwork for a culture where organic relationships can grow.

Hillmann

ON THE SAME PAGE

BY SUPERINTENDENT DR. MATT HILLMANN

Dr. Matt Hillmann has nearly 30 years of experience in education, with the last seven spent leading Northfield Public Schools in Minnesota. In fact, he was named the state’s 2023 Superintendent of the Year, praised by the Minnesota Association of Administrators as “a fierce leader and advocate for equity and student achievement.” In Northfield, Hillmann’s dedication to supporting students’ futures has helped close learning gaps and expand their broad range of offerings, from foreign languageimmersion programs to advanced placement courses to strategically leveraged partnerships with local colleges. And though Northfield has high expectations for their teachers, Hillmann is devoted to providing them with the supports they need to thrive. He is especially proud of the strong relationship he maintains with their teachers union, the Northfield Education Association.

Dr. Matt

The education workforce shortage is consistently present in headlines across the nation. Ideas about what school districts can do to recruit and retain high-performing employees in an increasingly competitive market are plentiful. In Northfield Public Schools, like all school districts, we have been seeking to recruit and retain the best teachers and staff since long before workforce shortages became a common discussion topic. One strategy to accomplish this goal is employee engagement. And a big part of engaging employees is having a productive relationship with their collective bargaining organization—often referred to as their union.

While the district-union relationship is inherently adversarial, it does not need to be acrimonious. When I was offered the district’s Director of Human Resources position in 2009, I considered declining it because I was concerned that I’d consistently be at the center of an “us vs. them” vortex. Dr. Chris Richardson, a mentor and our superintendent at the time, assured me that I would do well in the role and that he would help me acclimate to it. In the 14 years since, I have been proud of the productive relationship we’ve established with our teachers union, the Northfield Education Association. I believe that this relationship is an asset to our district and community.

The concept of relationships is sure to be part of every discussion about education, and this situation is no different. A strong working relationship with union leadership is essential. Still, what it takes to build, maintain, and—when necessary—repair relationships is often not explored deeply enough.

In the context of the relationship between school districts and unions, trust is often viewed as one-way, with the focal point being the district earning the union’s trust. But the best relationships are a result of mutual trust. The trust that the district has in the union is also critical for success. I assert there are a few areas of focus that, if done well, can lead to a productive district-union relationship.

Communicate.

Communication is foundational to quality relationships, and listening is the cornerstone of communication. Listening is a complex skill—we need to listen both for what is being said and for what isn’t.

Strong communication also requires regular connections. Our director of human resources and I meet with the union president and (often) the vice president twice per month. The agenda is simple—what is the union hearing from its members, and what does the district need to bring to the union’s attention? These issues can range from individualized matters, such as a teacher’s scheduled duties, to much larger and more complex topics, such as reductions in workforce.

It’s also important to check in with the union between our scheduled meetings in order to create an ongoing dialogue and ensure that accurate information is promptly available. Disagreements can arise when assumptions are made about a decision, direction, or initiative. Check-ins are a great way to prevent that outcome. They can be as simple as asking our union president what they are hearing from our employees and addressing any issues that require immediate attention.

Clarity is also a foundational component of any productive district-union relationship. When communication is crystal clear, people have the necessary information to understand a situation to its fullest extent. While there may be disagreement about a specific decision, people at least have information about why it was made.

When disagreement does arise, it’s important to communicate about that as well. No one likes complaints, but they are an opportunity to improve. When we receive a complaint through the union, I seek to hear the “request in the complaint.” In most cases, the request is to relieve burdens or obstacles that a staff member believes are preventing them from doing their best work for our students. In many circumstances, the issue they want solved is actually a manifestation of a different problem. Addressing the root problem’s causes often solves multiple issues at once. Listening to the “request in the complaint” can be difficult work. But it can also increase trust between the union and the district—because we have worked through the core issue rather than just the surface of the complaint.

Communication also means doing our best not to surprise each other. Transparency is critical in a trusting and productive district-union relationship. Bad news rarely ages well, so ensuring that our union president knows when a problem is brewing is a priority. Our union president is similarly committed to ensuring that our district leadership understands when a concern is developing. This commitment to transparent and prompt communication allows minor issues to be addressed before they become significant problems.

Follow through and adhere to the contract.

Another aspect of a trusting district-union relationship is following through. As district and union leaders, we endeavor to do what we say we will do when we say we will do it. Nothing is more foundational in this concept than adhering to the union contract.

There is no faster way to disintegrate trust between the district and the union than for the district not to follow what has been agreed to in the union contract. This document has been painstakingly negotiated to ensure clarity in the terms and conditions of employment. While it may be expedient for administrators to cut corners in this area, that is a bad strategy. But unintentional contract violations can also occur, and ensuring they are identified and corrected is vital to maintaining a productive working relationship.

The union has a vested interest in its members following the contract, too. Our union president and their member rights

advocates have been clear with their membership about what the contract means in certain situations, sometimes to the dissatisfaction of their members. When union leadership acts with integrity, following through on the agreements made at the bargaining table, they’re doing the hard work necessary to maintain the district’s trust.

Of course, the district and the union may occasionally need to address individual situations that run contrary to the contract. When there is mutual agreement that the written contract may not adequately address a particular situation, tools like a memorandum of understanding allow the district and the union to address these specific circumstances. One example could be an agreement to extend the district health insurance contribution for a long-time employee taking leave to address a personal issue—even though the timing wouldn’t require the district to do so. These agreements are usually mutually beneficial and do not create a precedent or interfere with a past practice.

There are times, though, when we can’t agree on how the contract should be operationalized in a specific situation. While the term “grievance” can be viewed as contentious, it should be considered for what it is intended to be: a process used when the district and union cannot agree on how the contract should govern a situation. Allowing the grievance process to work when needed is essential. It shows the reverence that the district and union have for the contract. When we’ve experienced grievances (thankfully, very few), the process has helped bring the issue to resolution.

Discipline should prioritize predictability and fairness.

In the district-union relationship, there’s no area more ripe for adversity than employee discipline. In my experience, the union desires to ensure due process for its members who are accused of wrongdoing or low performance. Most people want nothing different in their workplaces. An employee reasonably wants to share their side of the story when accused of misconduct. They also want to be made aware of deficiencies in their performance so they have the opportunity to improve.

A system that prioritizes predictability and fairness when it comes to discipline is critical to the district-union relationship. Systematizing your response to allegations against employees can offer numerous benefits. A quality process

is founded on impartial investigation and fairness. This ensures that the employee’s rights are protected and that they can share their side of the story. We guarantee that union representation is available for our employees during any investigatory interview, even in circumstances when it wouldn’t be required. This practice gives the union confidence that their members are getting the due process protections outlined by the law or by their contract (if applicable).

Every industry has low-performing employees. Most union members are as troubled about poor performance as district leadership is, but they also want a fair, predictable process for addressing it. Again, clarity is critical in handling these situations. The district should adopt clear performance standards and implement a system for offering feedback about an employee’s performance according to those standards. When someone isn’t meeting expectations, administrators have a responsibility to notify the employee, provide an opportunity for development through a performance improvement plan, and regularly review progress with that employee. In my experience, if an employee hasn’t shown sufficient improvement, the union has supported the district’s efforts toward terminating that employee’s contract.

Admit failure and learn from it.

We work in a human-centered industry. All humans make mistakes—even people who are well-intentioned, properly prepared, thoughtful, and skilled. Organizations can’t move forward without taking risks, and risks can lead to failure. We must take responsibility when mistakes are made.

In my district, a recent priority-based budget reduction process resulted in a proposed energy savings policy. This policy was intended to reduce our operational budget to minimize staf fing reductions—but I didn’t seek enough staff feedback about how it would impact employees’ day-to-day experiences.

Our efforts to develop a strong organizational culture are evident in these situations. Ultimately, our staff members did let me know how the energy savings policy could impact them. In fact, our employees were willing to directly discuss this without feeling like representatives from their union were needed. As a result, we paused the policy adoption. I scheduled eight listening sessions and accepted their direct feedback without judgment or excuse. I promised we would not bring an updated policy back until the fall semester so staff could be more involved in developing it.

Correcting mistakes can be painful. But modeling humility by admitting your mistakes, asking for forgiveness, and rebooting your decision-making process will lead to even greater trust with your employees and their union.

Center each other’s best interests.

Productive relationships with teachers unions are attainable when trust is firmly established. Trust is not a destination; it is a state of faith in each other to do the right thing and a process of centering each other’s best interests. How do we earn trust? By being trustworthy. We build trust by communicating clearly, following through on what we say we will do, honoring our agreements, solving problems collaboratively, and taking responsibility when we make mistakes.

Don’t confuse developing a productive relationship with your teachers union as becoming a “pushover.” The contrary is actually true—the effort to build and maintain this productive and trusting relationship creates the conditions necessary for working together to address whatever difficult issues arise. It’s a tremendous return on investment for our districts and communities.

By Heather Palacios

Asuccessful rebrand involves a massive internal overhaul of your brand assets, not to mention training employees on your new brand and promoting it to your broader community. But most importantly, rebranding means change, and change is often scary for organizations that have long histories of tradition—such as school districts.

However, when rebranding works, it can powerfully impact your schools. Done well, a rebrand can help boost low enrollment numbers, attract the right talent to your district, and reenergize community engagement.

There are many reasons why a school district might rebrand. One of the most common is growth. If your district has outgrown its original mission or purpose, it’s probably time for a change. According to leading marketing authority Hubspot, “If you’re considering a rebrand because your company’s vision, mission, values, and market are no longer reflected in your brand, then a rebrand might be the right decision.”

Consolidation may also necessitate a rebrand. If your schools have consolidated with another school system, your brand identity should reflect and honor every school in your new, united district. Other districts may also choose to rebrand in response to a public relations crisis.

Whatever the rationale may be, school leaders can learn a lot from the private sector about what they should (and should not) do when it comes to rebranding. Let’s take a look at a few private sector examples and discuss some helpful strategies for leading a successful rebrand.

Listen to and be honest with your audience.

Today Domino’s is the largest pizza chain in the world. But in the early 2000s, the company had a reputation for serving some of the worst pizza on the market. “We did consumer tests,” former Domino’s CEO Patrick Doyle told Bloomberg Businessweek. “If they knew the pizza was Domino’s, they actually liked it less than if they just thought it was a random unbranded pizza. We had somehow created a situation where people liked our pizza less if they knew it was from us. So yeah, that was a problem.”

That’s why, in 2009, Domino’s took a big risk: They told the truth. “We decided we were really going to roll around in it,” Doyle told Businessweek. “We’re going to make sure people understand that we heard them, we get it. The pizza wasn’t good enough.” Thus began “The Pizza Turnaround.”

Domino’s went back to the drawing board, revamping everything from the quality of their mozzarella to the flavor of their marinara sauce. They’d heard over and over that “the crust is like cardboard,” so they experimented with using higher-quality flour. And their new recipe yielded positive results. In a national taste test, Domino’s beat both Papa John’s and Pizza Hut.

But the success of their campaign was about more than adding garlic butter to the crust. It was about prioritizing transparency. As part of “The Pizza Turnaround,” Domino’s released a video showing all the tactics they had previously used to manipulate and stage their advertising photos— from adding enough cheese to get the desired “cheese pull” to drilling pepperonis into place. They even committed to using customer-submitted photos in future advertisements as an accountability metric. A few years later, Domino’s also changed their logo and dropped “Pizza” from their name, intending to make their brand so recognizable that their logo could stand alone without any text—as it can now.

Domino’s rebranding story highlights this key takeaway: Listen to and be honest with your audience. For Domino’s, this meant owning up to where they’d fallen short of their customers’ expectations. Maybe your district has faced a recent PR crisis and your leadership team is having hard conversations about how to move forward. Take it from Domino’s that this crisis could be your next opportunity.

And even if that’s not the boat you’re in as a school leader, it’s still important to have a clear understanding of what your community expects from the district and whether or not those expectations are being met. That’s because, as we learned from Domino’s, there can be a disconnect between the service you think you’re providing and the way that service is viewed by the community at large.

So what does your community value? Are those priorities evident in the stories your district tells about itself? The power of listening to and observing your audience—and acting on their evolving priorities—cannot be overstated. While your community may currently prioritize traits like individualism and personal growth, these priorities may shift over time. Try taking a step back, observing your brand from an outsider’s perspective, and asking yourself, Does our reputation in the community match the image we have of ourselves? If not, it’s probably time for a change.

And if you’re not sure how your community feels about your schools, this is a great opportunity to ask them. Consider periodically or annually sending out a communitywide survey to gauge sentiment. Ask your audience questions like: How does our district’s brand make you feel? What are our district’s strengths? What are our district’s values, and do you feel like we accurately represent these values? Asking questions like these can help you determine where your brand stands and whether you need to rebrand.

Talk to your internal stakeholders.

Your external stakeholders aren’t the only people you should listen to when determining whether your district needs a rebrand. You also need to talk to your internal stakeholders: your teachers, principals, and support staff. Not only will these employees be directly impacted by a rebrand, but they spend every day interacting with your students and families—meaning they also have their fingers on the pulse of what those groups want.

Source: Domino’s

We can learn a thing or two about listening to internal stakeholders from Taco Bell. The fast food chain has launched several successful marketing campaigns in years past— like their infamous “Fourth Meal” campaign, which appealed to their fanbase of late-night snackers. At least part of that marketing success is due to their history of listening to their franchise owners.

A few years ago, franchise owners Jeff and Lee Engler of Border Foods in Minnesota noticed a problem with their Taco Bell drive-thrus. When lines were too long, cars would turn away in search of faster food options. The Englers felt they needed to give customers what they wanted: speed and convenience.

So the Englers brought a radical idea to Taco Bell corporate: a new skip-the-line concept called “Defy.” The new restaurant would be a two-story building with four drive-thru lanes dedicated to mobile and takeout orders. Taco Bell greenlit the project, and the first Defy drive-thru opened in the summer of 2022 in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. It has since become a huge hit with customers.

have franchise owners running your schools, people like your principals and teachers act as liaisons between you and the families in your district. They’re in the weeds with families and community members, day in and day out. Principals, in particular, understand the pressing concerns and priori ties of families and teachers. They’re also a valuable voice when it comes to long-term strategic planning.

Whether you’re on the fence about launching a rebrand or have already begun the work, involve your teachers, staff, and principals in the planning process. Hold a lunch-and-learn or dedicate a staffwide meeting to discussing your brand. Treat it like a brainstorming session—make it creative and fun.

The purpose of this meeting is simple. Seek to ask questions, listen, and understand the needs of families in your district. Try setting a few ground rules, such as: No suggestion or idea will be shut down. A successful brainstorming session where all voices are heard will not only pay dividends for your rebrand, but also make your internal stakeholders feel seen and valued.

Keep your community aware of your plans.

The best rebrand success stories always have one thread in common: clear communication. That means keeping your community in the know at all times. As your launch date approaches, think through how you’re going to share the news with your internal and external audiences. This might include an official press release, social media posts, and a newsletter, among other communications.

Taco Bell President and Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams credits much of the company’s success to their franchise owners. In his view, franchise owners are closer to customers, so they know what their audience wants and needs more than corporate employees ever could. It’s no wonder Taco Bell has snagged the top spot on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Franchise 500 for three years in a row.

Taco Bell’s story is a great reminder that your internal stakeholders understand your audience best. While you don’t

Slack, a popular communication tool for businesses, announced its rebranding initiative in January 2019 through a press release on its website. The release outlined all of the reasons the company had decided to launch a rebrand centered around its logo. Slack’s old logo displayed many different transparent colors that didn’t translate well when used on certain backgrounds. “It was extremely easy to get wrong,” they admitted. “It was 11 different colors—and if placed on any color other than white, or at the wrong angle... it looked terrible.”

The reason for Slack’s rebrand was clear: functionality. The company needed to create a logo that would not only carry the essence of who they were, but also look great across all backgrounds and devices. In regards to the new logo, the company wrote, “It uses a simpler color palette and, we

Source: Taco Bell

believe, is more refined, but still contains the spirit of the original. It’s an evolution, and one that can scale easily, and work better, in many more places.”

Slack even ended their press release with a general timeline of their rebrand’s rollout. Keeping their audiences’ feelings top of mind, they made it clear that the visual elements on their website, product, and advertising channels would change over the course of the following two months.

Don’t rebrand unless it’s authentic.

Now that we’ve discussed a few best practices for rebranding, let’s talk about what you shouldn’t do. Perhaps one of the most notoriously unsuccessful attempts at rebranding in the private sector comes from clothing retailer Gap, Inc.

After the 2008 fnancial crisis, Gap sales began to plummet, and stock prices dropped by over 40%. The company knew they needed to act fast, but their solution ended up hurting them far more than it helped. They crafted a plan to change their famous logo—a blue box with “GAP” in capitalized white letters—which had represented the brand for more than 20 years. They would replace it with a new, “more contemporary” iteration that instead displayed the word “Gap” in black Helvetica font with a small, blue box in the upper right corner.

It may seem trivial to go to such great lengths to communicate your district’s rebrand, but in doing so—just like these private sector businesses—you’re helping to prepare your audience for the changes that lie ahead. As we mentioned in the beginning, change is hard, especially if people are caught off guard by it. According to Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School, surprise is one of the top reasons people resist change. “Decisions imposed on people suddenly, with no time to get used to the idea or prepare for the consequences, are generally resisted,” she wrote in Harvard Business Review. “It’s better to plant seeds—that is, to sprinkle hints of what might be coming and seek input.”

Press releases on your website and social media posts are great ways to warm your community up to change and avoid resistance in the long run. In the midst of planning your rebrand, set aside time to write a thoughtful press release for your website and discuss when to publish it with your team. You’ll also want to craft several social media posts about your rebrand and post them before and after your launch date.

Just like Slack, you have options. You don’t have to update your visual assets all in one sitting if you don’t want to. You could take a gradual approach and update your website, app, and social media channels slowly, over the course of a few months. But before you release a PR statement or post on social media, make sure your internal staff knows about your rebrand. (For more on that, read “The Rebrand Bandwagon” on page 34.)

The rebrand came seemingly out of nowhere on October 6, 2010. Without a press release or other warning, the new logo was suddenly added to Gap’s website and social media pages. And the internet wasn’t having it. Consumers and designers alike slammed the new look and the sudden change. A “Make Your Own Gap Logo” website, where designers could post their own parodies, began to trend. Someone created a protest Twitter account called @GapLogo that quickly gained around 5,000 followers. Amidst the ongoing backlash, Gap reverted back to its previous logo on October 12—just six days after the surprise rebrand.

Source: Gap, Inc.

So what exactly went wrong with Gap’s rebrand, and what can we learn from this unfortunate flop? First, Gap rebranded for the wrong reasons. Plummeting sales and stock prices were key indicators that something needed to change. But rather than looking inward and reflecting on what they could do differently, Gap took the fast and easy route. Instead of connecting with their core audience, they focused on their visual identity. Unfortunately, the change was only skin-deep, and consumers weren’t fooled.

Source: Slack

Gap’s story is a reminder that successful rebrands start from within, with your internal systems and processes. There’s a common misconception that brands should never rebrand in response to a PR crisis, but this simply isn’t true. Bad things happen, and sometimes the best solution is to start fresh with a brand makeover. But the change must be—at its core—genuine.

As Forbes Agency Council member Danielle Sabrina puts it, “It’s important for companies and executives to take a hard look at what caused the crisis in the first place. Like people, brands are always growing and evolving, so there’s nothing wrong with missing the mark as long as it’s clear that there’s a true course correction.”

Consumers are quick to call out brands that don’t appear authentic, so if your district is rebranding due to a public relations crisis, take this lesson into consideration. Unlike Gap, Domino’s shared how they were evolving internally to meet the everyday needs of their consumers. But Gap left their audience in the dark, which ultimately led to mistrust. Authentic, internal change—along with a thoughtful communications strategy—can pay dividends for your rebrand.

Secondly, Gap lost sight of their target audience. People love Gap because their clothes are affordable, timeless, casual, and comfortable. But at the time, Louise Callagy, a spokesperson for Gap, said the rebrand represented the retailer’s evolution from “classic, American design” to “modern, sexy, and cool.” The underlying problem was that people didn’t want Gap to transform into a modern, sexy brand. They wanted the classic American brand that everyone already knew and loved.

In the heat of a public relations crisis, you might be tempted to change your district’s entire identity. But oftentimes, people aren’t looking for your values to shift—at least not drastically. “Don’t rebrand because of the PR crisis. Rebrand because your brand stands for something important,” writes Solomon Thimothy, another Forbes Agency Council member. “A PR crisis is an opportunity for you to stand for your brand’s values, and rebranding may strengthen those values. The events that come after rebranding will then have to focus on the authenticity of your brand wanting to make things better instead of on rebranding your company from scratch.”

The solution to public backlash is sometimes more straightforward than we think: Share how you’re working to address

the misstep, and use the moment as an opportuni strengthen your existing values.

It can be hard to know if your district should rebrand. Maybe you inherited an outdated brand that your community has strong ties to, but you know in your gut it’s time for a change. Maybe your district is consolidating with other schools that want to maintain their individual identities, but you feel like a rebrand would bring your schools closer together. Deciding if—and when—you should rebrand is by no means easy.

That said, if you decide to move forward with a rebrand, keep hospitality, communication, and authenticity at the heart of the process. Remember to prioritize and listen to your audience. When your brand is built around your school com munity, it can endure the redefining process.

If your district is ready for a rebrand, take it as a good sign; change is a necessary part of progress. And the work of rebranding is never really over. After all, your district is con stantly evolving. Rebranding is a reflection of that change; it an opportunity to learn, reconsider, and ultimately, grow.

By Marie Kressin

Build buy-in with two-way communication.

As an internal communications specialist, Giattina has seen both what does and what doesn’t work when it comes to building staff buy-in. “In my experience,” she says, “people will resist change if they feel like they don’t have a way to respond or voice their opinions. You have to enable two-way communication. That’s the biggest key.”

The strategic planning process is a great opportunity to get your whole staff on the same page and excited about the future. Whether you just finished developing your strategic plan, you’re only beginning the process, or you inherited a plan from your predecessor—the success of your district’s strategic plan hinges on how it’s shared with your staff.

Annie Giattina is an internal communications specialist. She works at Arkansas Children’s Hospital as their brand engagement and internal communications director. “Internal communications is often neglected in the communications world,” she tells us, “but it can drive your culture. If you create an environment where people feel like they have a voice, where they feel like they’re going to be heard, the culture begins to shift.”

It might be tempting to just send out a mass email telling your staff members where to find information about the district’s new strategic plan. But while it may seem easiest right now, that tactic will likely cause problems down the road. If you don’t think carefully about how to communicate your strategic plan to your staff in a way that brings them on board, your new plan might be met with internal resistance or—maybe worse—indifference.

Here, we’ll unpack Giattina’s best practices for internal communications. Then, with the help of three school communications professionals, we’ll show you how those best practices can help districts build internal buy-in for their new strategic plans.

It’s best to develop a system for two-way communication as early on in the strategic planning process as possible. Just ask Stephanie Smith, APR, the public relations director for Fort Osage R-1 School District in Missouri. Smith tells us one mistake she’s seen districts make in the strategic planning process is developing their plans in a silo. “When you don’t have a nice, diverse group to help you put your plan together, then you don’t get to see all perspectives,” she says. “You’re not getting input. You’re not taking the time to do the research. And when you don’t do that research, you don’t get buy-in.”

There are several ways to approach the kind of research Smith is talking about. Maybe your district conducts a series of surveys. Maybe, like Fort Osage, you put together an advisory panel to help guide the plan’s development. The idea is to open avenues for two-way communication early on in order to build the kind of ownership that will lead to buy-in down the road. That said, two-way communication isn’t just something to focus on in the earliest stages of your plan’s lifecycle. It’s essential to keep these channels open no matter what stage of the strategic planning process your district is in.

This is something Missouri’s Affton School District has focused on, according to Director of Communications Erica Chandler, APR. They’ve done “gallery walks” to get live, in-person feedback from teachers on how they expect to implement the district’s strategic plan day-to-day in their classrooms. As part of this practice, large posters with specific questions or tasks are put up all around the meeting room. Teachers form small groups and rotate between the posters, writing responses on them as they go. Then, the whole group comes back together to discuss major takeaways, ideas, and concerns in real time.

“The best tool you can have in your toolbox is the ability to be receptive, even if it’s not something that you want to hear,” Chandler tells us. “Just knowing what’s being felt and what people are seeing—that’s the first step.”

Identify your key message(s).

“Simplicity is crucial,” says Giattina. “You want to keep the message simple and relevant, to think through what’s in it for your staff members. What do you want people to think? What do you want them to feel? And what do you want them to do?”

Chandler says that when it comes to condensing something as big and complicated as a strategic plan down to key messages, “it can help if you think through what the most important things are. What are the takeaways you’re going to be carrying forward?” Jill Filer, the director of communications and community relations at Missouri’s Harrisonville Schools, agrees. “If you have those key messages you continue to refer back to, that will help your staff recall information, so that it’s not all new each time,” she says.

Once you have your key messages identified, a great way to help make them memorable is to tie them all together with a common theme. “Let’s say you have three to five goals, and everybody can talk about what those goals are,” Smith begins. “When you look at those goals, is there a theme? Is there something that runs through everything, that touches on all of it, that people can get behind and understand easily?”

In the past, Fort Osage used Believe to Achieve as the theme for their strategic plan. “So even if someone couldn’t tell me the three main goals of the strategic plan,” Smith says, “they knew Believe to Achieve .” Having a common theme to return to makes it easier for staff at all levels to look for and share moments that align with your strategic plan. Not only does this build buy-in by making space for everyone to be involved, but it’s a great way to build consistency in your communications.

As Chandler says, “It’s all about capitalizing on moments when we can say: This is our vision living in real life . It’s about taking that big picture and making it about small moments.”

Keep your strategic plan front and center.

Another tip from Giattina is to communicate consistently— both at a regular frequency and through familiar channels. “Even if you don’t have a lot of time or resources, commit to communicating at a regular cadence,” she advises. “You can do internal communications effectively by just dedicating a little bit of headspace and time.”

It’s important to know which tools and platforms work best for communicating with your staff. If they check their emails consistently, why not schedule regular emails? If they’re more likely to use their phones throughout the day, could you plan to send text messages? Whatever channel you choose, make sure to keep the content of your message focused and your timing consistent. The last thing you want is for your strategic plan to fall off everyone’s radars during the busiest parts of the school year.

Of course, it may not be realistic to send out an email devoted entirely to the strategic plan every day at 10 a.m. sharp. So set a goal for yourself and your leadership team to send out a focused message once a week, once a month, or whatever frequency works best for you. The idea is to prevent communications from becoming overly sporadic— or worse, dropping off entirely.

As for the content of these communications, Filer believes you shouldn’t be afraid to reiterate key messages over and over. “Not everybody is going to read the staff newsletter, right?” she says. “We know they don’t read every email. So making sure you are reemphasizing and repeating yourself is important. It may feel like you’ve said the same thing 20 times, but a new staff member in the district may only hear it for the first time at a staff meeting. You need to repeat yourself.”

When it comes to consistent communication, it’s important to recognize that you can’t be the only one leading the conversation. If you want to keep your strategic plan front and center, then conversations need to be happening at all levels of the district. “You can be the manager and the organizer of the strategic plan’s rollout, and you can check on people to make sure they’re repeating your key messages, but the idea is for your strategic plan to trickle down to your schools,” Filer says. The more you can do to support your

“It’s all about capitalizing on moments when we can say: This is our vision living in real life. It’s about taking that big picture and making it about small moments.”

building-level leaders as they identify how their work relates to and furthers the goals of the district’s strategic plan, the better. That way, they can help keep conversations on track.

Of course, as the district leader, you are best positioned to ensure the strategic plan never moves to the back burner. So why not start each staff meeting by connecting the agenda’s objectives back to the strategic plan? Or include a link to the plan in your email signature? Consistently keeping your strategic plan’s core takeaways front and center is essential. “The more those takeaways become commonplace,” Chandler says, “the more that they’re heard over and over— that’s when it starts to resonate.”

Have a plan.

“From a communications perspective, it’s so important that you plan things out,” Filer says. “Internal communication about your strategic plan isn’t just going to happen. It has to be intentional. You have to create a plan to continue the conversation; otherwise, it will just end up on the shelf with no one talking about it.”

According to Filer, an effective communication plan means identifying what you need to say (which should be easy if you’ve identified your key messages), how you want to say it, who’s going to say it, and when they’re going to say it.

As you’re considering these questions, look for opportunities to incorporate your internal communications plan into your district’s broader communications strategy. For example, one of Harrisonville School District’s key messages from their strategic plan was “life-ready graduates.” Sharing stories about students working toward life preparedness became a throughline for both Filer’s internal and external communications.

You’ve heard it before: Work smarter, not harder. As you’re developing your approach for communicating your strategic plan internally, look for places where that plan and your district’s overall communications plan might overlap.

Just get started.

If you haven’t yet spent much time thinking about your organization’s approach to internal communications, don’t worry. You aren’t alone. “Don’t be disheartened if internal communications hasn’t been on your radar,” Giattina says. “Starting is better than doing nothing. Just start somewhere.”

Developing an approach for internally communicating your strategic plan may feel like a daunting task, but many pieces of the puzzle will fall into place once you get started. If you identify your key messages, then you’ll know what to talk about consistently—and if you talk consistently, there will be more opportunities for feedback. More opportunities for feedback will lead to greater buy-in, which will lead to more conversations about your key takeaways—especially if you make a plan. Every piece works together.

It’s true: This work will take time and efort. But it’s so worth it. “Your employees are your number-one ambassadors in everything you do,” Chandler says. “So making sure they understand your district’s strategic plan, your vision, your mission, your core values, who you are—that is hugely important.”

Top Tips for Internal Communication

Internal communication is a foundational part of your school marketing strategy—and your district’s overall success. After all, if your staf members aren’t on the same page about your district’s brand, marketing priorities, and vision, how can you hope to communicate your identity to the rest of your stakeholders?

SchoolCEO is built on the expertise of school leaders, so we wanted to hear from you. What strategies for strengthening internal communication have worked in your district? How do you keep your internal stakeholders—from building-level leaders to teachers to classifed staf members—on the same page? Here’s what school leaders around the country had to say.

“When communicating, think about concentric circles. We follow this communication pattern so we don’t unintentionally leave out an important stakeholder. For example, we always send letters that will be going to the community (parents, etc.) to union leadership and district leadership first. Then we send them to all staff and finally out to the community. This is important because in a district of over 26,000 students, I can’t answer the questions of all parents. They will go to teachers and principals for their answers. I need to make sure these groups have all the information that I send to parents so they can help with communication efforts.”

“I have sent staff communications every Friday for the past 21 years. When I was working on my principal license, the number-one complaint I heard from the wanna-be principals in my cohort was lack of communication from their leaders. I lived it myself. I vowed to never have a staff member say, I didn’t know about that . I add upcoming events, shoutouts, birthdays, professional development, and any other relevant information. When I first started, I printed copies off and put them in teacher mailboxes; today, I send out an email newsletter, as more than 90% of staff read communications on a mobile device.”

“Strong internal communication requires very tight alignment between the superintendent and the executive team. The superintendent’s direct reports have to be a cohesive and highly integrated team who are all equipped to tell the district’s story and cascade the story through their portfolios of responsibility. Our executive team has a full commitment to synchronization, coordination, and shared understanding. That’s how we ensure everybody—from a bus driver to a facilities employee to the HR team to a principal—gets the exact same exposure to the work of the district and their part in it.”

-Superintendent Dr. Kelly May-Vollmar, Desert Sands Unified School District, CA

-District Administrator Dr. Jeanne Siegenthaler, Richmond School District, WI

-Superintendent Dr. Mary Elizabeth Davis, Henry County Schools, GA

“Each of my assistant superintendents is responsible for directly supporting four or five schools, so every school has a direct line to the cabinet level. They have an assistant superintendent who’s checking on them and on their campuses on a weekly basis. It’s about just-in-time support—knowing that when you send a text or you pick up the phone, you have an assistant superintendent who will take that call or that text right then, right at that moment. Building a structure so that people at your cabinet level provide that direct support is critical.”

“Our superintendent, Dr. Rob Brown, employs two protocols twice a year not only to check the pulse of his school district, but to strategically get some of his district’s best ideas from his best assets—his employees. These protocols are called ‘Start-Stop-Continue’ and ‘Good-Better-Best.’

Start-Stop-Continue asks teachers, office staff, custodians, bus drivers, food service workers, and every individual in the organization to provide feedback, anonymously or with a face and a name, directly to the highest position in the district—no middle man needed.

Start: What is something I know of in another school district that I would like to see here?

Stop: What is something in this school district that I would like to see come to an end?

Continue: What is something in this school district that I would like to see continued?

Good-Better-Best is a similar but slightly different protocol to identify areas for the district’s strategic plan.

Good: Spotlight something good about your job and where you work.

Better: Explain something that administration, our community, or you can do to make your work experience better each day.

Best: Propose an idea that can help our school district become the best school district in our state.

Through the use of these two protocols, we have created new positions, like school improvement specialists, mental health counselors, and a public relations director. Programs that had been used in the schools for many years came to an end. And most impressively, our district became one of the best in the state of Georgia, with some of the highest scores and most satisfied employees!”

The best part of our work at SchoolCEO is talking to school leaders and hearing their stories.

If you’ve never connected with us before (or even if you have), we would love to hear from you. Email us anytime at editor@schoolceo.com or scan the QR code to set up a call with us. We can’t wait to chat with you!

-Superintendent Dr. Dan Streeter, Marana Unified School District, AZ

-Director of Community Engagement and CTAE Jason Lemley, Lumpkin County Schools, GA

Take Thrillshare to the next level with Engage

Engage the hardest-to-reach members of your community with the same platform you already know and trust to build your school brand.