Jennifer Caracciolo

1. Jennifer Caracciolo • Director of Public Information and Communications • Forsyth County Schools Effective Communications| It Takes a Plan!

2. Overview| Effective Communications Overview Why Communicate? • School communication is fundamental to student success and the overall organizational success. Achieving strong school communication between and among all stakeholder is most often achieved through the development of a School Communications Plan. • (Graham-Clay, 2005) RACE Comm. Plans Social Media PR in Action

3. Overview| Effective Communications Similarities • It doesn’t matter what size district or school you come from – the importance of communication remains the same. • Students = #1 Customer • Same Challenges: decreased funding and increased accountability • Finding Opportunities: positives of public education

4. Overview| Effective Communications Importance Gets your message out to parents, community and students Allows you to clarify your goals and objectives Provides a vehicle to dispel rumors Crucial component of classroom, school and district perceptions Near the top of most surveys as problems areas

5. RACE| Effective Communications Overview • Describes communications as four-step, continual cycle process. It involves: • Research • Finds out about the situations facing your organization, how they came about, who is involved in them, how they relate to your organization’s goals, and how you can maximize the benefit and/or • minimize the harm they might do. RACE Section 1 Comm. Plans Social Media PR in Action

6. RACE| Effective Communications • Action • Uses your research findings to determine the best source of action, plan your response, and then implement these plans. • Communication • Takes advantage of all available media to deliver carefully focused messages through the most appropriate channels so they can have positive effect on • your publics.

7. RACE| Effective Communications • Evaluation • Analyzes what’s been done during the first three steps to see how it affected your publics and their perception of your organization. • Once this step is completed, you return to the research step and begin the process again.

8. Sample Plans| Effective Communications Overview Reasons for Planning RACE According to Sparc (2006), a strong communications plan should outline who you need to communicate with, about what, how you’ re going to do it and how often. Comm. Plans Section 3 Social Media PR in Action

9. Sample Plans| Effective Communications • A strong communications plan should: • Support your organization in achieving its stated goals and objectives • Improve your operational effectiveness • Support or improve your relationships with those that are important to ensuring your success (stakeholders) • Deliver measurable results to your organization

10. Sample Plans| Effective Communications • A Communications Plan Should: • State mission and vision of school • Communicate priorities • High student performance • Healthy students in a safe, orderly and caring school • Effective and efficient operations • Informed and involved family and community members • Strong family, community and business support

11. Sample Plans| Effective Communications • Review Plans • School • Program/Project • Similarities • Audience • Purpose/Messages • Strategy/Tools • Timing/Timeline • Persons Responsible

12. Social Media| Effective Communications Overview • CAUTION: Get your school and individual website RIGHT before proceeding! • Should be your primary marketing and outreach tool • Must be dynamic – avoid a static site • Promote your site and train your audience to visit – list in ALL communications tools you use RACE Comm. Plans Social Media Explore PR in Action

13. Social Media| Effective Communications • If Social Media is simply people having online conversations then public school districts should be conversing via Social Media. • 25% of all time spent online is 35 minutes per hour (Nielsen) • Over 1.3 billion active Facebook users, 70% log in once a day (CNN) • Social media accounts for 1 of every • 6 minutes spent online (comSource)

14. Social Media| Effective Communications • Social Media Options • Blogging/Wikis • Tell your good stories • Introduce ideas and plans • Feature writing • Feedback through moderated comments • Use text, photos and video • Samples • http://blogs.forsyth.k12.ga.us/azink/ • http://colttech.wikispaces.com/ColtTech

15. Social Media| Effective Communications • Social Media Options • Facebook • Communicate Facebookurl (website) • Post links plus photos/videos • Have comments policy • Tag other schools/pages • Ask/answer questions • Samples • https://www.facebook.com/ForsythCentralHS • https://www.facebook.com/NorthForsythMS • https://www.facebook.com/KellyMillES

16. Social Media| Effective Communications • Social Media Options • Twitter • Post once and hit two sites! Link directly from Facebook or vice versa • On-the-go posting • Embedded links (tinyurl.com) and photos • Samples • https://twitter.com/timclark45 • https://twitter.com/KellyMillES

17. Social Media| Effective Communications • Social Media Options • Video • Options: Website, YouTube or Vimeo • Photos • Options: Website, SmugMug, Flickr or Facebook • OQ (Quick Response) Codes • Smartphone bar code reader • Can send texts or emails after scanning • Free Google or http://freenuts.com/top-10-free-online-qr-code-generators/

18. PR in Action| Effective Communications Overview FCS’ Public Information and Communications Department’s vision is that all stakeholders have consistent, timely and accurate information with opportunities for effective, two-way communication that result in increased student achievement. Our mission is to implement an effective communications plan. RACE Comm. Plans Social Media Advance PR in Action

19. PR in Action| Effective Communications • Goal: To help connect schools and the community by every means possible. • We value open, honest communication with all stakeholders, and believe in positive working relationships with parents, employees, community members, business leaders and representatives of the news media. We believe that public education is stronger when all stakeholders are well-informed and involved in issues affecting FCS.

20. PR in Action| Effective Communications • Review Areas of Focus • Communication Guidelines for Schools • Q & A • https://www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/pr • Other Resources • https://www.gspra.org • https://www.nspra.org • https://www.prsa.org