Denver Public Schools launched its School Communication Specialist Program in 2019. It started with two specialists covering six schools. Seven years later, eight specialists split their time across roughly two dozen school and department clients.

Denver Public Schools Director of Marketing Brittany Cowan described the need plainly: “Communications work is something that every school needs to do, but there is often very little time in the day for that to be run from the school level.” In Denver, the answer was a centrally based specialist whose full-time job could support schools rather than asking educators to absorb the work.

The structure is straightforward. Three schools each fund a third of a specialist’s salary. In exchange, each school receives 13 hours of dedicated support a week, with the specialist on-site one day per week. That schedule is enough for the specialist to become a known presence in the building, not just a name on an email signature.

The model also benefits from a common digital foundation. Denver’s schools use Apptegy’s website platform across the district, giving specialists a consistent place to publish while still allowing individual schools to show their own identity, people, programs, and priorities.

The scope of the role is broad. Family communications, social media, the school website, tours, branding, signage, event support, and school culture all fall under one position. Each year begins with a priority-setting meeting where the principal identifies what matters most: a logo, a recruitment push, a family communications system. The specialist builds toward that priority rather than trying to do everything at once.

As Cowan put it, “The idea that we could have a centrally based professional communicator and specialist whose full time job is supporting schools with that type of work, lightening the load on all those other people that we mentioned and kind of being the go-to person for that body of work was really exciting.”

Participation is opt-in, and Cowan said that distinction matters more than it might seem. “There’s almost the psychology of it,” she said. “I’m paying for a third of the time, and so therefore I’m going to be invested in it, versus if they get it donated to them.” Sponsored placements at schools that did not request the program still produce results, she said, but the school's participation and engagement in the program is more varied when the placement is sponsored. Her comparison is a paid gym membership you actually use versus a free one you do not.

Emma Calkins, one of Denver’s specialists, described the infrastructure work as the real long-term value. When one of her schools did not renew for a third year because of budget constraints, she left behind a 60-page transition document: newsletter templates, step-by-step Canva and Thrillshare tutorials, and communications best practices she and the principal had developed together over two years. The goal was simple: whoever inherited the communications work next, even someone with no communications background, could pick it up without starting from zero. Calkins said the handoff was designed so “whoever takes it over next should know exactly how to do it.”

That kind of transition planning is easy to overlook when a school is focused on the next newsletter or social post. It is also what turns one person’s contribution into institutional capacity.

Calkins used surveys to check in with families at the start of the year and again midyear, then reported back what changes the feedback had produced. The follow-up survey came back with sentiment she described as entirely positive. “I just try to listen to what the parents prefer and also try to keep my best practices at the same time. And it's always been received positively,” she said.

Data did the heavy lifting when principals resisted change. Moving schools away from ClassDojo and onto Thrillshare met pushback until Calkins reframed the decision around accessibility and equity. Getting a reluctant principal to approve an Instagram account took about a year of pointing to engagement data from Calkins’s other schools. Once approved, the account matched years of Facebook engagement within its first few months, and that data closed the argument.

Denver grew the program through email outreach to all school leaders, pitches at principal calls and front-office conferences, direct outreach to likely-fit schools, and word of mouth between principals. Cowan noted that the model was not a hard institutional sell because it mirrors other shared central-office roles Denver already runs, including shared technology partners and financial specialists.

The enrollment case is direct. Cowan described a break-even concept: “If a school communications specialist can recruit three new students to their school, the program pays for itself.” That is a useful way to explain the potential value of the role, but it is best understood as an enrollment threshold—not a controlled measurement of the program’s return on investment.

Even schools that are not actively recruiting lean on their specialist to help families navigate Denver’s SchoolChoice process. Communication is part of enrollment, whether a school labels it recruitment or not.

Communications Director Kelcie Springer runs the district's communications function with one other full-time communications professional and administrative support from a staffer who also serves as the board office's front desk receptionist.

Springer’s program started with a measurement problem. Coming from a marketing background where revenue was the metric that mattered, she found that communications work in a school district lacked anything comparable. Her answer was simple: I'll just ask.” She built a Microsoft Forms survey with 20 to 25 questions asking families to rate communications satisfaction at the teacher, school, and district levels. It launched with about 160 responses the first year and grew each year after, reaching roughly 340 by year three.

The survey repeatedly surfaced findings that reshaped Jefferson County’s strategy rather than simply confirming what the district already believed. Parents rated teachers highest and the district itself lowest. Awareness of individual school newsletters ran lower than Springer expected, but among parents who did read them, engagement and reported usefulness were both high. When the district followed an email newsletter with a text reminder the next day, readership climbed sharply.

Text, Springer said, is not her personal preference as a communications channel. “I hate it. I don't want to be texted. Leave me alone. But if that's what they want. They told us that. So then we need to do what they've asked.” It is what the survey told her families wanted for non-emergency updates, so the district adjusted around that preference rather than its own.

That approach aligns with SchoolCEO’s reporting on what parents want: families do not experience a district’s communication strategy as a set of channels. They experience it as a series of moments when they need information, reassurance, access, or a response. The job of the communicator is to make those moments easier—not to defend the channel the communicator personally prefers.

The school communicator program grew directly out of Jefferson County’s survey data. Communicators are drawn from whichever role happens to be available at a given school such as assistant principals, teachers, school aides, and secretaries. Springer summarized the reason for adding school-based staff this way: “we needed school people and we saw that that was an area we wanted improvement.”

Each receives a base stipend of $3,000 a year, with an additional $250 at middle schools and roughly $500 at high schools, funded through the general budget. The program covers 16 school buildings at a total cost of about $60,000 a year.

Requirements are deliberately minimal: two stories submitted monthly for district use on social media or local press, two newsletters a month, calendars updated 90 days out, and a maintained staff directory. Springer built in flexibility around the communication cadence. A principal who wants to send a single monthly newsletter instead of two is not penalized, provided families report that they are getting enough information. “I'm a big believer that the tiny things make a big difference,” Springer said.

That flexibility is important. A school communicator program should create consistency for families without pretending that every school has the same staff, culture, or communication needs. Springer described a consistent newsletter schedule as “a contract between you and your families.”

Turnover in the role has been limited to two people, both tied to changing schools rather than leaving the position itself. Springer said several principals have specifically credited the program in presentations to the district’s board of education, calling out the communicator’s role in reducing their own workload around family communication.

The role also clarifies an often-missed boundary: “You were not responsible for creating the content of every message,” Springer told her communicators. They are responsible for getting the message out and curating the information families need—not for becoming the author of everything in the district.

Over three years of survey data, the share of families citing social media as their primary information source has declined as website and mobile-app usage has grown. Springer takes that as evidence that the strategy is working as intended: social media creates visibility, while owned digital channels become the dependable places families go for information.

What carries across both programs is more important than the price tag.

• A feedback loop: A survey, or a comparable source of family feedback, turns communications from an assumption into a measured function. Both districts point to data—not instinct—when a principal pushes back on a change.

• Infrastructure that outlasts one person: Denver’s transition documents and Jefferson County’s minimum-requirement checklist exist so the work survives staff turnover.

• A direct tie to enrollment: Even schools that are not actively recruiting rely on communication to help families understand their options, navigate the system, and decide whether they belong.

• A budget-scaled entry point: Denver’s opt-in cost-share model and Jefferson County’s stipend program work within existing district budgets, scaled to what each district can actually support.

• A defined place in leadership: The work is strongest when communicators are not treated as downstream producers who simply distribute decisions. They need access to the people setting priorities and enough authority to shape how those priorities reach families.

That final point is central to SchoolCEO’s A Seat at the Table research. Communicators with access to district leadership are more likely to do proactive, strategic work. Denver builds that access through a formal partnership between specialists and principals. Jefferson County builds it through a central communications department that uses survey findings to influence district decisions and through school-based staff who connect those decisions to individual buildings.

Springer’s advice to a district considering the same move is direct: “Just do it. You don’t have to have this... perfect training or all of these things. Just get them in the room, give them the access and start.” Her starting point was three requirements. Everything else, she said, was built through a year of feedback. Looking back on the program, she said, “This program allowed us to increase satisfaction with our families at the school level. It allowed us to answer a need. And because we had a survey to back it up, I could justify the position to our board of education.”

The two districts show that there is no single correct way to staff school communications. A district can share one specialist across multiple schools. It can add a stipend to an existing role. It can begin with one building, one survey, or one person who is willing to own the work.

The exact structure matters less than the decision behind it: communication is not leftover labor. It is a district function with consequences for trust, family experience, school culture, and enrollment.

Different budgets. Different structures. The same lesson: communication improves when someone owns it and when the district gives that person the tools, access, and expectations to succeed.