According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, 69% of public schools reported difficulty filling at least one open non-teaching position before the start of the 2024-25 school year. In Colorado, 27J Schools was no exception. “This is certainly nothing shocking to anybody who's worked in a school district supporting recruiting,” says 27J Communications Manager Mikel Philippi. “Those hard-to-fill positions—custodians, bus drivers, subs, paraprofessionals—are always roles where you see some turnover.”

27J had been posting about their open classified positions on social media, but those posts were falling flat. “Previous recruiting for those classified positions had been so stale. Every post was: ‘We're hiring!’ Insert job title, insert pay rate,” says Philippi. Those posts weren’t just boring; they were underperforming, getting less engagement than typical district posts. More importantly, they weren’t achieving the desired click-through rate—meaning fewer applications. 

But district human resources had partnered with the 27J communications team in the past on a teacher recruitment campaign—to great success—so they reached out once again. “​​Since we were doing this well for the teachers, our HR chief wanted us to apply that same special touch to recruiting for the classified positions,” says Philippi.

Thanks to data on past and current employees, the 27J team knew that the people most likely to apply and be hired to classified positions were over 45 years old—sometimes even retired. Further research determined that Facebook and Nextdoor would be the best platforms for reaching that target demographic. But what to post? 

By 2024, the 27J comms team had earned a reputation for “stepping out of the PR blueprint,” Philippi says—using unconventional social media tactics to boost engagement and produce results. That’s exactly how the team would approach this new challenge. During the previous teacher recruitment campaign, the team had seen strong engagement on posts with a sense of humor. So they decided to apply that strategy to classified recruitment as well. “We wanted to come at people in a way that they wouldn’t expect—catching them off guard, catching their attention, making them laugh,” says Philippi. 

Instead of more traditional recruitment posts, 27J posted homemade memes about openings. For example, a December post seeking a new HVAC technician featured the holiday characters Heat Miser and Snow Miser, captioned, “Help wanted to protect our schools from these two.” 

The campaign was successful on multiple levels. “We were getting shares, and some of those shares were coming from our own people—district staff who had seen the old versions of posts,” says Philippi. “The change clearly incentivized them to share with their network.” As a result, the average post saw a 36% increase in reach compared to previous recruitment posts, as well as triple the engagement. Average link clicks more than quadrupled—indicating that more people were actually viewing applications for the positions.

“Plus, we’ve gotten feedback that when we’re doing these posts, we’re seeing bigger applicant pools with more viable candidates—and we’re setting up more interviews,” says Philippi. “So HR has been satisfied with it.” 

27J's advice to other districts? “Take a hard look at your data and see what is and isn’t working," says Philippi. "Continuing to do your social media how you’ve always done it is probably going to get you the same results it always has.” 

The “180 Days” campaign would highlight everything BCSD students were missing when they didn’t come to school. Each Facebook post paired a photo from a specific day of school with a “180 Days of…” title. For example, Day 130’s post—“180 Days of Family Engagement”— spotlighted a family picnic at one of the district’s elementary schools. 

All posts were overwhelmingly positive by design. “It was a focus point for us that this shouldn't be punitive. It needed to be encouraging,” Mills explains. “Our families try so hard in so many different ways, and we really need to encourage them, support them, build a relationship with them. If we come across harshly, that relationship can't flourish. We needed to come from an inspiring, informational standpoint: Let us show you why we need your kids on campus.”

Not every single day of the school year got a “180 Days” post; instead, the BCSD team posted every five to 10 days. Even so, the campaign demanded a lot of content—but according to Mills, it wasn’t hard to find moments to highlight. “Part of what our schools do so well is build relationships with their families. They are already having these fun celebrations and events,” she says. “We just looked at those things that were already happening through this ‘180 Days’ lens.”

The BCSD communications team also hand-created “180 Days”-branded selfie frames for each of the district’s 44 campuses, complete with interchangeable numbers. “You could change it as the year went on and use it as an engagement tool to celebrate students who were improving their attendance,” she explains. The frames were popular—almost too popular. “Some schools wanted two or three,” she says. “Obviously, they were utilizing them.” 

By the 180th day of school, it was clear the campaign had been an overwhelming success. Chronic absenteeism was down by more than 6% across the district; some schools had even seen a 14% to 16% drop. Daily attendance was up by 1.5%. But as Mills is quick to point out, the shift wouldn’t have been possible without buy-in from the entire district. “This was definitely a team effort. It was not just us throwing some pictures out there,” she says. “Our school staff were already trying to engage with parents—but ‘180 Days’ gave them a quick reference and helped unify the message.” 

In the wake of national enrollment declines and increasing uncertainty around federal funding, budgets are weighing heavily on school leaders’ minds—and that stress inevitably trickles down to the communications department. Even in districts where the staff remains fully intact, comms teams may feel pressure to do more with less. But what if your team could make some extra cash just by doing what they’ve always done? That’s exactly what Texas’ San Benito CISD (SBCISD) did when they monetized their district Facebook page.

Having done social media management before joining SBCISD, Social Media and Communications Specialist Maria Guajardo knew monetization was possible. “All of Facebook’s revenue comes from ads, so they benefit from keeping people on their platform,” she explains. “If you create the type of content that keeps people on the platform, Facebook will reward you for that.” 

While all of Facebook’s monetization programs are invite-only, higher engagement and reach increase your chances of being invited. So in January 2024, the SBCISD team set a goal for their district page: a 30% increase in engagement and a 50% increase in followers by mid-April, with hopes that they’d be invited to monetize. To accomplish their mission, SBCISD needed to develop and maintain a deep understanding of their audience. 

“Looking at Facebook’s analytics gives us a lot of data that we need: Are we on track? Who is our demographic? Who is looking at our content?” says Luis Gonzales Jr., the district’s director of public relations. But just as helpful as that hard data were the relationships the comms team built with the district community in real life.

“You have to get to know your followers, what they like, where they hang out,” Guajardo says. “Involve them. Make them part of your content. The more you get to know them and what they like—and the more you interact with them when you're out in those community events—the more they like you and follow you, because you’ve built that relationship.”

In getting to know their audience, the SBCISD team learned what made them tick. Posts featuring students—especially in large group activities—tended to perform well. “Whenever we share anything with the band, they love that, because it’s such a big group of kids,” Guajardo says. “It's such a community, so they'll start tagging each other in the comments and sharing with each other.” 

The district smashed their goal, boosting their engagement by 49% and their follower count by 78%. Fortunately for SBCISD, Facebook took note. As a result, in March 2024, the district’s page was invited to join the platform’s Performance Bonus program, which awards cash based on reach and engagement metrics. 

Of course, as soon as money entered the picture, the team needed to involve the district’s finance department to keep everything above board. “Our finance department has contacted our auditors to make sure that we are following the protocols when it comes to receiving monies like this,” Gonzales explains. 

Since joining the program, SBCISD has received a little over $7,000 from Facebook. So far, the communications team has reinvested some of that money into their content by purchasing better equipment, like mics, gimbals and editing software. “We’ve also discussed creating a scholarship opportunity for students in the audiovisual communications segment,” says Gonzales. “Those are the things we're going to look at this year with those funds: How can we invest in creating better content, and how can we give back to the community?” 

Gonzales admits that $7,000 isn’t enough to make or break the district’s communications—“but they’re still funds that we can do things with,” he says. And, as Guajardo points out, it’s basically passive income. “This money is generated just by doing what we would be doing anyway,” she says. So why not get paid for doing it?

Your schools may not face the same challenges as the three districts featured here, but whatever your problems are, we’d bet social media can help you face them. The trick is to stop thinking of your district pages as beasts that need feeding and to start thinking of them as levers you can pull to influence your community. Start asking: What are our district’s biggest goals—and how can social media help us reach them?