Q & A Platinum Award Winner Kristin Zastoupil, Forney ISD Executive Director of Marketing & Communications

Q & A with Platinum Star Award Winner Kristin Zastoupil Forney ISD Executive Director of Marketing & Communications

by Tracie Seed

As an educational communications professional for 17 years, with 14 in K-12 schools, Kristin Zastoupil has been the executive director of marketing & communications with Forney ISD for almost two years. This year, she and her team, TSPRA members Dana Curry, Larry Coker and Bubba Willis, created a campaign “Forney Family,” which won them the Platinum Star Award at this year’s conference. After her team’s win, we had a chat with Zastoupil to learn more about her process and any tips she might have.

Q: How did you come up with the concept for your piece and why did you produce it?

A: It was a 2 a.m. wake-me-from sleep brainstorm. When I first took the position in Forney, being a two-high-school town, we knew we needed a campaign to bring our community together. I kept asking myself what brought me to Forney, and it was family. A sense of family that the district and my coworkers provided, a chance for my family to move to a great district and raise my kids, and it was actually closer to our extended family. Forney Family was born, and I took the idea to my team at Forney ISD. They brainstormed and expanded beyond just the idea to an incredible unity campaign. The district was about to release its core values, and this tied in beautifully with relationships first at the heart of our district values.

Q: How long did the process take from A to Z? Who else was a part of your team?

A:The idea started in late June, and we kicked the campaign off in early August with the start of school. It keeps growing, so it’s still going from June 2018. Our communications team, who are also TSPRA members-Larry, Dana and Bubbapitched the idea to our leadership team, and it was embraced by the entire district. Our first step was internal PR by getting staff to embrace the idea. We’re the largest employer in the county, and I’m a huge advocate for internal PR first. Dana then shared with our new community partnership groups, pastors and principals, PTO presidents, service organizations, retired

teachers, city and county leadership, and it just expanded outward into the community from there.

Q: Why did you decide to enter it in the Platinum category?

A: We felt this was a unique unity campaign that is truly working to bring our community together. While it was district-led, it’s bigger than just Forney ISD, and that was our hope. It spread like wildfire, and now you can see yard signs, stickers and T-shirts throughout our community. It’s permeated the culture to create a new, more positive culture. And it’s still going and we’re still brainstorming new ways to promote Forney Family.

Q: What does it mean to you to have won the Platinum Award?

A: I’ve always loved that the Star Awards were a professional critique of our work. It gives great feedback to let us know the quality. But I’ve always been a little intimidated by the Platinum Award. It seemed large bond campaigns won quite often. I really wanted to enter this because it was different, and in my 14 years in TSPRA, I hadn’t had a concept like this grow to such a huge campaign so quickly. It was because of a great team and leadership that saw the vision for it, and we grew it together. I wasn’t sure others outside our community would grasp the difficulty we had bringing our community together, and why/how this worked so well. It was a huge honor and shock when Forney Family won platinum!

Q: What tips do you have for other districts who want to produce a similar piece?

A: Focus on what humanizes your district. I feel like I preach “humanize your PR” a lot to my team. Most audiences see a district as a big, inanimate entity. It’s important for them to see the faces that do the work every day, and not just teachers. They need to see you, your superintendent, your board, your leaders - as community members, parents, grandparents, as human. They want to know there are caring people making decisions about their kids. What better way to do that than embrace them as family? Laugh with them, cry with them, and show them you are human. My favorite quote from Scott Stratten goes right along with this. “We don’t expect perfection. We expect accountability.” Humanizing your PR strategies builds trust, and when a mistake is made (because we’re all human), the public can give you the grace to fix it, apologize and move on without losing trust.

Q: Is there anything else you would like for us to know about your piece or about entering the TSPRA Star Awards?

A: Forney Family may have been a 2 a.m. thought, but it was my team and leadership that made it come alive by brainstorming all of our strategies and tactics, then executing the plan and embracing the concept. It would not have been the incredible campaign it still is without a lot of people behind the scenes. Thank you isn’t enough for all their hard work but winning a TSPRA platinum award for our team was a nice bonus!

Charles Willis, Kristin Zastoupil, Dana Curry, Larry Coker receive the Platinum Star Award at the 2020 Annual Conference in Austin, TX.