The Clay County School District has grown significantly in recent years. Where the district may have once been classified as a quiet bedroom community outside Jacksonville, they’re now an “A” rated Florida district with 40,000 students. What’s more, in just the last 5 years, they’ve had a 63% increase in English Language Learners; today, Clay serves families who speak 54 different languages. And the growth isn’t stopping any time soon. In the fall of 2025, the district will expand two junior high schools with an additional 32 classrooms at each location.

Of course, all change comes with challenges. Back in 2023, district leadership realized that the outdated communication tools they were using simply couldn’t scale with their growth to properly serve their changing student population. Terri Dennis, coordinator of communications and media partnerships, says the communication challenges were even noticed by school board members. "We have parents on our school board,” she says, “so they were aware of the multiple versions of communication we’d use—and how sometimes you might miss a communication because you didn't know where to look or you weren't checking your email." The district needed a solution.

A small team made up of both communications and technology staff—and self proclaimed as “The Communications Cadre”—met weekly to attack the issue.  "A big need we heard from our teachers and athletic coaches was that they wanted a way to have instant communication to parents," says Sabrina Thomas, Supervisor of Technology Services. "Sometimes one school would get a message 10 minutes later than another, and that 10 minutes made a big difference in how families perceived the schools

Quickly, the team uncovered an unmistakable problem: From newsletters to mass alert notifications to the school and district websites, everything was housed on different platforms, making communication incredibly difficult to manage. Curriculum Specialist Linda Schriver, who personally managed 43 different school websites through Google Sites, was overwhelmed. "I had to manage each website individually for updates,” she tells us. “During an emergency, it was a nightmare.”

To put it simply: The district didn’t just need new tools. They needed a complete, strategic communications transformation that would honor their people-first values while providing speed, accuracy and ease of use.

After surveying their community, staff and teachers, the district identified an overwhelming desire among their stakeholders to simplify and centralize communication. They found their solution in Apptegy’s full suite of communication tools all located within the Thrillshare platform. Now that they had a thought partner in Apptegy and an ideal communications solution, the Communications Cadre went to work. They created a multi-phased rollout plan that balanced intentionality with urgency—one that was designed not to overwhelm the staff with sudden change. 

Implementation

Phase 1: Website/District App
With Apptegy’s platform and centralized Content Management System, Clay County went from managing 43 individual Google Sites to operating within one unified platform. Schriver could finally update all school and district websites with the push of a button. The platform also allowed the district to ensure brand consistency across the entire organization. "We created new websites and, in many cases, new logos, plus a whole new school brand. It tied everything together,"says Graphic Designer Trudi Boese. But maybe most importantly of all, each school could now update their own website and produce communications with ease. 

And with so many new families moving to the area, a strong website presence was crucial. "When people move here, they’re not looking at your social media first,” Dennis says. “They go to your website. It needs to be beautiful and tell your story." Luckily, their new websites came with an Apptegy exclusive feature called “Live Feed,” also accessible to families through the district’s new mobile app. Apptegy’s Live Feed gives the district and its schools an integrated platform to share quick updates simultaneously across the school & district websites, as well as the district-branded mobile app. 

Thanks to the Live Feed feature, each school in the district can tell their own success stories. "Our websites are no longer static. They're being refreshed with this content that schools are pushing out, says Thomas. “And if we have parents that don't want to have a Facebook account or an Instagram account, they can still get the same information by downloading our branded app.” Ultimately, the new platform and branding have helped elevate the district's image and competitiveness—especially for recruiting families and staff.

Phase 2: Rooms Messaging
Following Apptegy’s expert advice, the district also soft-launched Rooms in May 2025 before summer break. Technology coaches trained teachers face-to-face, while digital “backpacks” offered bite-sized, self-paced training options online. The team built a room for each school, populated with administrator messages so parents would see content immediately when checking in over the summer. In just a few weeks, 30% of families district-wide had already downloaded the tool.

Phase 3: Alerts & Engage 

Crisis communication is always the top priority. Florida schools frequently face weather closures or delays due to hurricanes, tropical storms and other year round severe weather events. With Apptegy Alerts, Clay can now send real-time updates across email, text, phone, website, social media and app push notifications—all with the push of one button. Translation tools ensure the messages arrive in the parent’s preferred language. The Communications Cadre no longer has to post manual web banner updates or depend on principals forwarding email messages to parents. 

With Apptegy, "That 10-minute lag is gone. We can breathe a sigh of relief,” Dennis says. “One message, one button, every family reached.”

Brand Cohesion and Positive Public Perception

For a rapidly growing school district, consistent and elevated branding is essential. "I’ve been preaching branding and marketing for years,” Boese tells us. “Now our schools not only look professional but show pride in everything they do."

Apptegy’s message segmentation also helped keep negative news from affecting the district-wide brand and reputation. "No more posting that the school bus is late on Facebook. That goes through alerts to the affected parents only," Thomas says. "Our social media is now strictly the highlight reel of student and staff success."

The secret sauce of Clay’s success was their strategic training and rollout plans. Superintendent David Broskie took the lead setting the vision from the top, providing regular updates on communication strategy and rollout plans at every school board meeting. Union reps were brought into training conversations early, ensuring teachers understood what they were and were not being asked to do. “We headed off the anxiety before it had a chance to build,” Schriver explained

Schriver and Thomas led a comprehensive training program to ensure widespread adoption. Their approach was inclusive for all learners: from face-to-face sessions to self-paced videos and live virtual training. "We created technology backpacks—self-paced training modules with our voices and faces—so our staff felt comfortable. They weren’t learning from a stranger," Schriver notes. And every training moment reinforced their message: This is easy to use. This is much more effective. This is how we build an engaged school community.

They were also very intentional in conducting one-on-one training sessions with influential staff members who would influence large groups at the district and school levels. They knew these early adopters and early wins would be critical to their continued success. 

Gamifying engagement played a big role, too. One high school principal created a treasure chest incentive for incoming freshmen families. Those who activated their teacher two-way communication accounts were offered rewards like yearbooks and prom tickets. Schools competed for top parent and student activation rates awards.The team has also created an award that they will present monthly to the school with the highest app download and Rooms engagement rates among parents. 

Throughout all phases, Apptegy’s support team was hands-on. Whether through providing live training, chat support or producing parent-marketing resources, the district never felt alone. “Apptegy made everyone a better communicator,” Terri says. “That’s not just a slogan. It’s our reality now.”

The metrics moved quickly in just the first 6 months! The new Apptegy powered Clay County Schools website saw a significant increase in active users, growing from 199,000 to 270,000, representing an increase of 35.68%. User engagement also dramatically improved. The average engagement time per user on the new Apptegy site is 90 seconds, compared to 40 seconds on the previous site. This is a remarkable increase of 125.00%. As of June 2025, just one month after soft launching Rooms, 30% of district parents had already activated their accounts, with some schools reaching 43%. And the new Clay County Schools district branded app has been downloaded 14.350 times in just 6 months. 

Clay County District Schools may have started this journey with a fragmented communications landscape, but thanks to their visionary leadership team, intentional planning, and a unified communications system powered and supported by Apptegy—the Clay Communications Cadre has become a model for how public schools can communicate fast and effectively with clarity and confidence.