We have seen this movie before: two distinct, but critical parts of a school community realize that if there was more collaboration between the groups the experience for those they serve will improve. Having been a school and district level administrator, I know how quickly we can get in a silo focused on a singular mission. Each role is that critical to student success.
About a decade ago, education technology blogs were littered with articles about better collaboration between technology and instruction. I should know, I wrote a few myself. Now it is commonplace and I would go so far to say a standard. You can look no further than the recent ISTE & ASCD Merger to see this. So what is the next movie, you ask? School technology leaders and school communication leaders working seamlessly together to better engage families.
This year we saw a collaborative partnership between CoSN and NSPRA taking on the social media verification needs of school districts. However, taking this collaboration down to the district level is where we will see the largest impact.
Simplify Family Engagement
In the latest CoSN EdTech Leadership Survey, 63% of technology leaders surveyed were increasing the frequency of communication. At the same time, over half were expanding the number of channels. If you’re a parent, I am sure you can relate to the folder on my phone where I save all the different apps that the school district uses to communicate. Many may be set up outside the governance of technology, the administration or the communication team. Can you imagine a company like Apple letting each store and corporate headquarters use whatever communication tool they wanted with customers and as many different ones as they wanted? Me neither. Your school brand is important and we want to make accessing it simple so that families are more engaged. When communications and technology leaders collaborate, they can consolidate tools and enhance the parent experience while decreasing complexity.
Speaking of Brand
It is not hard to argue that family engagement and communication is more critical than ever before. In today’s world, schools compete for students. It could be a parent looking for the best place for their child to flourish, or someone moving into your community. An increase in the ability to work from home also offers parents more choice. A school’s brand is not just the outward facing places that a parent sees daily, it is the combination of the everyday interactions that occur.
Our team of experts at ParentSquare have been putting The Complete District Communications Playbook together to support school communication leaders across the country. The first part focuses on elevating your district’s brand and even provides a free template that can be downloaded and customized. While elevating your brand can feel like a daunting task, it is essential to ensure the continued success of your school or district. The playbook makes it easy by covering:
1. How to create the two elements of your brand
2. How to be consistent and persistent
3. How your stories hold the key to an elevated, sustainable brand
Part two is also available and walks through forming a school communication strategic plan for your district. Parts three and four will be available soon, and the entire playbook is free for everyone.
Know your Data
If you have governance and parent’s are seeking your brand, then you have the ability to have the data needed to best engage families. Data plays an important role in creating a districtwide family engagement strategy. Consistency of data and accuracy is critical. Having a consistent strategy increases your ability to understand interoperability and the various connections to your families. Data also helps to engage the most difficult to reach families who often have the most barriers to using technology. Having tools that can adapt and get clean, useful data is essential to engage with hard to reach families. Quality tools can help you not only identify the families in need of greater support, but also address the challenges and barriers to engagement. This is an area where a cohesive alignment between communication and technology can really drive support for teaching and learning teams.
We have all seen research that proves the families that are more engaged have better academic and social-emotional learning (SEL) outcomes. When technology leaders and communication leaders work together, we can remove communication blockers by increasing simplicity, build trust by promoting a more cohesive brand, and reach more families with better, more accurate data. Each of these improves the lives of students and families alike.
Resources
The Complete District Communications Playbook Part 1: Elevating Your District’s Brand
The Complete District Communications Playbook Part 2: Forming a Communications Strategic Plan
Chad A. Stevens, Ph.D., is the Chief Strategy Officer for ParentSquare, a CoSN Board Member, and former teacher, school administrator and district chief technology officer.
