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Explore the relationship between superintendents, school communications professionals, and technology officers with Apptegy's Greg Turchetta and Claremont Unified's Elaine Kong. We’ll examine the similarities and differences between these three roles—and uncover which priorities they share.
Related resources
Common Ground SchoolCEO research
We examine the essential collaboration among superintendents, communication directors, and technology officers.
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Josh Silver, the former chief technology officer and current chief of staff at Las Cruces Public Schools, brings a unique perspective on education technology to his district.
Top school communication and leadership books
We’ve compiled a list of books that will empower your team to better strategize around shared goals and become better collaborators.
Transcript
Greg Turchetta: All right, ladies and gentlemen. As they continue to file in, let's get this party started. I'm Greg Turchetta, my co host over there, Elaine.
Elaine Kong: Hello.
Greg Turchetta: We're here to talk about common ground. Hard to find, but once you have it, it's priceless to hold it. And that's our topic today. How superintendents, chief technology officers, and communication pros work better together?
I'm Greg. I work for Apptegy now. I'm a strategic communications advisor, but prior to joining the company a year ago, I spent ten years as the chief communications officer in K-twelve and higher ed. So you're getting two comms chiefs for the price of one today. I have three dogs, including that huge one hundred and seventy five pound Great Dane you see standing on that couch. That is a couch.
And when I'm not talking school communications and helping districts, my wife and I love to jet ski.
And we live here in Florida, so that happens year round. Go beach.
Elaine Kong: My name is Elaine Kong. I'm the director of communications for the Claremont Unified School District. I've been here for about two years now, moving on to my third. And before this, I was at Vacaville Unified up north in Northern California. And before that I worked for CBS and Fox News as a on air reporter and also a multimedia journalist. So I did all the camera work, the audio, all the shooting and interviewing, and then also going on camera as well before that.
So you're getting you're not getting the you know, two for the price of one like Greg, but you are getting a journalist perspective and also a comms pro perspective.
Greg Turchetta: We're both former journalists. You're kinda getting, three for one out of each of us. Targeted today.
Elaine Kong: And when I'm not doing communications, I'm out surfing with my friends and family and the boyfriend. So we're actually going to Costa Rica next week after fourth of July. So we're going to go and hang out in Costa Rica and surf for about two weeks. So it'll be a good time.
Greg Turchetta: She lives in Southern California and surfs when she's not working. That's life.
Elaine Kong: Very stereotypical, I know.
Greg Turchetta: Hey, I'll take it. Stereotypical, when it's wonderful, it's wonderful. All right, let's get going here. For those of you who don't know Apptegy and SchoolCEO. Apptegy is our company, SchoolCEO is our research arm. If you're not getting these magazines on a quarterly basis, you need to sign up today. schoolceo.com.
Cover to cover, it's information you can use in your job day in and day out. It's information your superintendents can use, they need to be on the list. And of course, now we're talking tech directors this edition as well, get them on the list. We've been in the research game for many years. You can see each one of these is a topic that we've done. My personal favorite is that seat at the table, how to get comms directors a seat at the leadership table, what teachers want, what parents want, we've covered it all. Again, schoolceo.com is where you can find all of that.
So let's talk.
We want to understand the relationships between superintendents, communications directors, and tech directors. And for the purpose of this conversation, because we had large districts and small districts in the research, if you were and some have a tech director, which is a tech department of one and a comms department of one, that's kind of what we're basing it on, is the highest person in that area.
There's three case studies that we base this on: AAASA research, COSEN research, NSPRA research, and a joint project that Apptegy did last summer with NSPA. So we took their best research. We had some of our own independent scholars look at it, and now we're excited to show you what it came up with today.
All right, so the kickoff question. This is back in the chat. Give it to them, Elaine.
Elaine Kong: Yeah. What are the biggest barriers to CTOs, CCOs, and supers collaborating effectively?
Greg Turchetta: Good. Type it in there. What are the things you you run up against? I can tell you I hear a lot just from being on the sales side with Apptegy.
So while you're typing, there's three ways products can get bought in my opinion. The superintendent can do it on their own and say, I love this, we're making a brand initiative, and here we come. Tech director can do it on their own, and then the comms director probably needs the help of the superintendent or the tech director to get it done. Right?
Oh, Kevin. No. Not an issue in their district. Fantastic.
Maggie, budget. Yes. Budget is definitely a barrier. What else, guys? Come on. Elaine, what do you want to throw in there while we're waiting?
Elaine Kong: It's having everybody understand that that is the right product. Right? Because there's so many different vendors that are out there. How do you get everybody on the same page on, you know, this feature from this, you know, organization is better than the others. Right? Getting all on the same page about one.
Greg Turchetta: Comments are coming in. Board not willing to let us manage the broader image.
That's an interesting that's a leadership issue. I would go to the superintendent and say, let's create some distance and let us do our work here.
Feeling isolated and not understanding what each role or expertise can bring to the table and how we can work together. That's great, Hadley. That is exactly what we're going to cover today.
Sarah, we don't have a communications director, the lines are blurred as to who's responsible for what, which is we're gonna cover that as well. And then schools accustomed to running their own comms message. Oh, yes. I've run into that one over and over. Elaine, have you seen that as well? The rogue schools who have their own way of doing it?
Elaine Kong: That go and go on camera, that choose to talk to media when they're not supposed to and don't have permission, yes, I've definitely dealt with that.
Greg Turchetta: Hashtag herding cats.
All right. So, yeah, you guys are feeling the pain points of exactly what we've all, we've both dealt with, felt. And I can tell you on this side of it, from the Apptegy side of it, in these conversations of having to help coach people, okay, you've got this idea that you want to do a new website, how do you get it done? Right, and we're going to cover a bit of that today too. So let's get into it.
The question is how can all three leaders work in sync, right? At the end of the day, want everybody rowing the boat in the same direction.
That's where the efficiency is, that's where the power is. You show me a high performing school district and I'll show you a leadership team that has figured this out.
Fair, Elaine?
Elaine Kong: Is that fair? Absolutely.
Greg Turchetta: Yeah. Let's go. Good.
Elaine Kong: Yeah. So I mean, how do the question is, how do all three leaders work in sync? Right? And I can only really talk about this from the communications perspective.
So my first thing, know, and as Greg knows and also was a journalist, right, it starts with questions. I think it always starts with questions because questions are what connect people, right? So you know asking questions, what does it do? It builds trust and understanding.
You know it's really how we form connections and as communicators we don't enter in collaborations with our you know superintendent or our tech directors or anybody else with assuming that we have all the answers, right? We start with concern and curiosity. And that's how we kind of get that collaboration and, you know, syncing up as leaders, right? Is understanding what that vision is, right?
Because when you kind of get all on the same page based off of the questions that you ask and the understanding, then you can go towards a goal that you, you know, all are aiming for, right? And and the goal is either launching a new website or the messaging that goes out to families every other day. You know, whatever it may be, you all need to be on that same page to be able to go and do anything that's effective. Right?
So when you don't understand the vision, you're just not delivering the message correctly. Right? You wanna walk alongside your superintendent and your tech director. Right?
It's it's really that collaborative relationship that needs to happen for everybody to be in sync.
Greg Turchetta: Now, Elaine, I know you're very well prepared, so I don't believe that you're gonna go into a meeting without having all the answers. So is the secret really keeping it in your pocket and just keep asking bleeding questions that get the other two where you want them to go?
Elaine Kong: I think it depends. I think it depends on the scenario, right? So if you already have an idea of where you think this needs to go, but, you know, there's other people that, you know, may not be on board. Right?
Ask the questions as to what they think from their point of view in their seat is the most important, right? And because you already have everything mapped out, if you're super prepared, then you can explain why, you know, A, B, and C then helps out with their department and makes things easier for them, right? But still asking questions is great, right? You do want to understand where the technology director is coming from with a new website, right?
Or with messaging about, you know, a phone outage or whatever it may be, right? You still want their perspectives because it's important, right? Why is it important? Because you want everybody to be in sync of course but also because when you have that shared vision, then the community members, the educational partners, the students, everybody that's involved that gets the message will understand that it's cohesive.
People can tell when things are not cohesive. People understand that you haven't worked together as a team if this message doesn't look right. So going at it as you're a team and syncing up with everybody and asking questions, that's what I think is really, really important.
Greg Turchetta: Love it. And that really comes back to the word perspective. The perspectives, and that's where we're gonna jump in here. Everybody know what that is?
It's Play-Doh. Right? We all know Play-Doh. Here's what you probably didn't know. Play-Doh goes way back, its origins come back from when there was coal heat in homes.
And the manufacturer originally made Play-Doh to get the soot off the walls. I had no idea. I didn't know soot was a big problem. But then when coal went away, all of a sudden, Play-Doh's market went away.
But then all of a sudden there was a teacher who took that Play-Doh and it was easier to manipulate for small children than modeling clay. And so when Play-Doh's manufacturer found out that was going on, they went to check it out and a whole another market developed. And that's how Play-Doh became what it is today. It actually was a soot removal tool.
Perspective, right? It's how you look at it. Another quick story. I see that Rolls Royce on the screen.
There was a New York banker who went into a bank and said, I need a five thousand dollars loan. And I'm willing to put up my quarter million dollar Rolls Royce as collateral. The bankers kind of laughed and went, dollars five thousand? That car is worth a quarter million?
Okay. They took the car. They parked it. He said, I'll be back in a couple of weeks and I'll pay the loan off.
So he shows up a couple of weeks later. He says, okay, what was the interest on that five thousand dollars loan? They said fifteen point one four dollars And so he goes, great, here's the money. And so they finally asked him, we got to ask.
This doesn't make any sense to us. Why would you leave that car as collateral for a five thousand dollars loan? You only need it for a couple of weeks. And he goes, because I just paid fifteen dollars to park in New York City for two weeks.
Perspective.
So perspective is a huge piece of this. If you can't see the issues through your teammate's eyes, I don't know how you get to consensus or empathy or understanding, right? And that's where we got to go. And so that's really what it is.
It comes down to recognizing, understanding and valuing everybody's unique perspective that they bring to it. And you're gonna see in some of the data we're gonna look at how different these perspectives are based on who the people are. And we're gonna dive into that soon. So our agenda today, two parts.
One, recognizing it. Two, understanding and valuing it.
So part one, what is each role's unique perspective? Let's look at who's who.
Superintendents, follow me on the baby blue color here, superintendents are predominantly fifty and older.
Tech directors are even older than that. They skew as high as sixty, yet comms directors are much younger.
Think about the people you see at your conferences. That matches up. It certainly matches up what I see superintendent and tech director conferences.
Race, this one's disappointing. There hasn't been as much diversity in education as I think we'd like there to see and predominantly white across the board.
The gender one's interesting, right? Because superintendents and tech directors predominantly male, comms director is predominantly female.
And if you look at who's who as far as age goes and tenure, superintendents Well, if again, this is a political thing. Okay?
Elaine, out in California, are we seeing turnover of superintendents left and right? Or is it pretty steady?
Elaine Kong: I think it depends on the area that you're in.
More conservative areas are, I, you know, from my understanding, they are seeing a bit more of a turnover in more liberal areas, less so. But that also depends on the school board, right? There's been a lot of turnover of school boards in certain areas of California, because of COVID-nineteen and everything else that's kind of happening in the world right now politically as well.
Greg Turchetta: Yeah, and over here in a red state like Florida, in the last five years, sixty five out of sixty seven superintendents have been replaced, if my math is correct. I mean, that's a high number. So yeah, you're gonna see a lot of newer superintendents coming in, and you're exactly right. Board turnover leads to superintendent turnover.
It just seems to be a math equation that keeps playing out. Comms directors, little more experience in their roles. Tech directors, really experienced in their roles. I mean, you find a tech director who hasn't been at a school district less than ten years, that usually stops me and says, who were you before?
Some of them have been there their entire career and they just moved up. So there's a lot of institutional knowledge in that tech position. There's a lot of knowledge in the superintendent coming in as to there are political motivations that have to be factored into decisions. There's a desire for quick change and make things happen.
And then there's you, the comms director, in between trying to hold all this together going, okay, how do we communicate all this, right?
Quite frankly, many of our communities have changed a lot, right? So how we're communicating to whom we're communicating has really changed as well.
So priorities. Let's get into what the priorities of each position, much along what you said earlier about asking the questions, right? These questions can really unearth the priorities. So we're going to go through what the research showed on priorities, and we're going to see if it squares up.
Superintendent, education equity, academic achievement, school community relations, curriculum instructional issues, personnel management, that's a big one.
Student discipline, a little more distant, but they still have to talk about it at board meetings and whether students are getting expelled or not. School safety and crisis management, I think that one's probably low on the list. Because obviously, mean, Elaine, has that consumed you guys, school safety?
Of course. Yeah.
Top three, right? Yes.
Superintendent board relations, another huge one.
As comms directors, one of my best piece of advice is if you want to help your superintendent survive, get involved in the superintendent board relations and help them out. You are the expert, you understand, and quite frankly, you need to know what the school board is asking and what they want answers to, because you have to control the messaging. So natural synergy there, school reform and improvement, budgets, bond initiatives. There's the finance.
Many states that have vouchers, the state I'm in currently, school districts are having a thirty to fifty million dollar shortfall. That's a real problem involving real money. Conflict management. There's always somebody upset at somebody, right? Education system's huge.
Whether it's negotiations, you name it, there's conflict management, law and legal issues, facility plan. It goes on and on. Right?
Now to you guys.
Elaine, take it away.
Elaine Kong: Yeah. Writing and editing is huge. Social media, marketing, strategic communication planning, which is undervalued in in some aspects. Right?
Internal communications. Right? You have to communicate with your staff before you communicate with anybody else. They're going to be the people that are your biggest advocates and also have those relationships with other people, right?
Crisis communication, I think that one's top of the list because if you're having crisis, you have to drop everything else to make sure that that is done correctly and in a fast way that gets out to families. External communications, similar to that, community relations and public engagement, also huge, right? Website management, thanks to Apptegy, it's actually easy. Will say we do have their website and it is just the best thing to use is website management when it's easy.
And I love Apptegy for that. And then media relations, whenever they're at your school board meetings, got to make sure that they're taken care of. And if they have other questions, making sure that they're being responded to in a good fashion. That way they stay on your good side, right?
Greg Turchetta: Yeah. Now let's get to the one you're probably here for. Because if you have any experience like mine, I've had great technology departments to work with and I've had really tough ones, right? No, no, no, we can't do that.
But then you dig in deeper and it's not a no, it's just you didn't talk about it enough to get to their priorities, right? So let's talk about theirs. Broadband and network capacity, that's becoming an issue the more and more strain we're putting on systems. Data privacy and security is probably top dead center number one.
It just is, right? How many school districts have had a cyber attack and had to climb back up that mountain? It's not pretty.
And it just shuts everything down.
Cost effective smart budgeting.
Tech budgets aren't getting bigger, they just aren't. And tech directors have to make tough choices.
They have to replace equipment all the time. So a brand new flashy website may not be something that they're looking at from the same lens you are until you get them to see it through yours.
Parent school communication. Yeah, they kind of have an eye on it. Obviously, that's more in our lane.
But IT crisis preparedness, of course. Cybersecurity, yes. Network infrastructure constantly needs to be improved. And then determining an AI strategy, we'll get to that later. That's an everybody problem. But it's certainly emerging as gonna become one of those collaborative pieces that has to be dealt with.
So there's your top three for superintendent, top three for your chief communications officer, Top three for your chief technology officer. So what do we do with this? Okay, now that we understand it, how do we attack it?
So there's three case studies. If this district looks slightly familiar, it should because this is Elaine. She was actually in the case study and we're fortunate to have her come back and be a part of the webinar. And then two other, Vernon Verona, Cheryl and Clay County, you're going to see some quotes from them later. But we really dove in and said, districts get it.
We're going to throw, there it is, Elaine's quote. Elaine, let's start there.
What do you do in Claremont to make this work to work well?
Elaine Kong: Yeah. So I mean, quote goes, we foster strong relationships that benefit the entire district by maintaining open dialogue. Right? And, you know, what that really comes from and why I put that as a quote was, you know, talking about leadership in four directions is really where I was, you know, hinting at, right?
You lead yourself, right? You lead your team that's under you if you have a team, or people that are, you know, that are teachers, the custodians, you know, people that are a part of your CUSD team, right? Your school district team. Leading across, which is leading people that are, you know, if you're a director, leading across the table to them.
And then leading up, right? Leading up is, you know, who your bosses are. You know, I answer directly to the superintendent, but I view all of the assistant superintendents as my bosses as well because they all manage different areas of what the superintendent is in charge of, right?
So when I talk about, you know, strong relationships, it then goes back to the questions, right? I go and I ask questions to all of these different leaders in my organization to really understand what the values are and what the core of what we're trying to do really is, right? And that's what builds those strong relationships, is understanding who you're leading, understanding how you're leading them, and understanding what their priorities are, right? Because once you do that, that's where the strong relationships are built is because you share that vision and you share what you need to do.
Accomplish if you have a strategic plan. Right? I don't know if you can see me, but I have our strategic plan here. We always have it in every single room.
Like, it's on the walls. It is we have paper copies of them. We have them in English and Spanish. We have them everywhere because that's what guides our work.
And that's how we can build those strong relationships is because we have something to tie it to. And it makes it so much easier for all of our work to get done because we can tie it to something that is concrete, right? It's not an opinion anymore. It's on paper.
It's our strategic plan. This is what the board approved. This is what our community approved. And this is what we're going to do.
And that's how strong relationships happen, is when you can build that common goal and you can strive for that vision through leading and also through asking questions.
Greg Turchetta: Elaine, do you have communications goals built into the strategic plan, or are they baked into other goals?
Elaine Kong: They are baked into all goals, but we have a specific focus area of one of our six focus areas that's specific to communications.
Greg Turchetta: Awesome. Hey, also, if you guys have questions, fire it away in the chat. This is a conversation we're going have as we go. That's not a bad time to ask a question. If you want us to elaborate on something a little more, please do it and we'll pick them up as we go.
Okay, it's important to share your why with others, but also know when to challenge the team self reflection is a great place to start. And I love that one because so much of this is how you come into that conversation, right? You're coming in most of the time wanting to get something done with a level of urgency that other people don't have. You're the comms team, you're running at one hundred and twenty miles an hour. They may be looking at something as a two year plan, you're looking at it as a two week plan, right? So that, like Elaine was alluding to earlier, checking yourself as you come through to make sure you're coming at it from a way they're gonna process and digest what you're saying.
If you're not getting the reaction you want, self reflection is a great place to start and go, did I go about that right?
Is that the tack that you needed to take? Because my experience has been, even when you report to the superintendent, and if you don't report to the superintendent, that's a problem and that's a whole another webcast.
But when you do report to them, more often than not, you're talking to them about media crisis, you're talking about a board member concern. When you have the chance to go, hey, we need to look at teacher communication. It's usually a blurred out within a couple of minutes of a very short conversation. So you're trying to cover the ground, but at the same time you look back and go, that didn't go well. That's not how I wanted to do that.
And tech is the same way.
Kevin's love that quote. We found success positioning ourselves not as communicators, but problem solvers. Love that. We all have problems and we're looking for others to help solve those problems. Yes, and we're charged with solving the problems, right? No matter what area we're in, is a great place to build collaboration, love it.
If you haven't heard of Clay County School District, you need to. They're one of our longtime client, and I'm actually working on a case study with them right now, where you wanna talk about how to do a strategic rollout of something, they are phenomenal at it. They have just, they built a manual that I'm probably gonna turn into something bigger for Apptegy clients of this is how you get buy in, and this is how you approach people at every step of the process so nothing blows up in your face. And their quote speaks somewhat to that. Building relationships, actively listening and seeking to understand, exactly as Kevin said, each other's role and challenges is essential to strong collaboration. I think empathy is a big piece of this too. Elaine, would you agree with that?
You guys right now, I don't think I've ever been in a more stressful position running a K-12 district. And so how do you come in with empathy on a tech director who wants to say no or not now?
Elaine Kong: You know, that's so true. Empathy is, I mean, we work in K-12 education, right?
Empathy is a lot of everything that we do, right? We wouldn't be in these roles. We wouldn't be working for a school district if we didn't have that empathy.
And how do you get there, right? Because sometimes you just are not there, right? Based off of how somebody spoke to you, based off of you know, the demands of the position, you know, whatever it may be, right? Sometimes you just can't get there.
What I like to do before, you know, going into those conversations and those, you know, tough rooms to really be in is I take a moment and I watch a video or two from, you know, different inspirational leaders, right? So, you know, there's Molly Grisham, and there's all of these other really great leaders that are on, you know, YouTube and social media that have these like minute or two minute pieces about gratitude or about self reflection or whatever it may be that you need in that moment. I'll watch them and I'll already feel better, right? Because you're getting a different perspective, right?
And you're actively listening to somebody else's own problems. And once I can get in that headspace, it's much easier for me then to go into a room and say, okay, how do we do this with empathy? How do we go in here and figure this problem out together? But if I don't understand something, right, and I'm frustrated by it, I go and I still go back to asking questions first and getting on that same page.
Greg Turchetta: There's something else in that research that stuck out. Elaine, I want to bounce off of you because you're somewhat in the area of the question.
If you're a younger female comms director and you're going to older, more veteran tech and superintendents, there could be some biases attached to that conversation before you walk in. No?
Elaine Kong: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Greg Turchetta: How do you counter that?
How do you come in to that knowing they may be thinking, she's because again, your background is what many of these the other part I didn't mention is many of these comms directors come out of journalism and PR roles. Not on education system. So how do you tackle that?
Elaine Kong: You know, that's a really really great question, and I think it you know, and it's in the moment, right? You're talking about a moment in time where you're walking to a room and you're asking for something or they're asking something of you and there's that bias that's there, right? But how do you combat that, right? And I think it all goes back to relationship building And it goes back to, you know, digging the well before you need water in there, right?
I think it goes back to seeing them as human beings first. Know, my superintendent, Doctor. L. Sasser, does such a wonderful job about getting to know people first.
And I've learned so much from him in that aspect where you want to dig that well first. You want to get to know who they are as human beings. What's their favorite food? You know, do they have animals at home?
Do you know, what inspires them? Why are they in this job? Is it for service? Is it for, you know, accountability?
Is it for recognition? You know, what drives that person, right? When you can understand that and, you know, who they are as a human being, you can then take down those biases one at a time and you can have them see you as a human being, right?
I'm in my 30s. And you know, when I was in my 20s and I was doing this position, I walked in, you know, on my first day at my previous district and my superintendent said, yeah, they, you know, HR wasn't going to hire you because they thought you were too young, right? So, and and she said, no, we're we're going to hire her. She's going be somebody that comes in and has new ideas, right?
So, it just takes one person to kind of recognize, no, they have a really good perspective. And if you think about it, right, how old are our parents now? How old are you know the people that we're serving, right, and that we're communicating to? So if you're able to get that across and you're able to have your superintendent or you know the other people that are in your department or you know across departments understand that you add value and that you are a human being first, that's then just going to break down those barriers, right?
Because then they kind of see you as more than, you know, just that person that sits in that office, right? You know, something that I get a lot and, you know, at first, I really didn't like it, but now I've come to really respect it is, you know, people will say, Oh, you're my daughter's age, or, Oh, you know, my grandchild's your age, right? Something along those lines. And at first I'd be like, Gosh, like they're, you know, they're putting me in a box.
It's like, No, they're not. They're just trying to relate to you.
They really because that's really it, right? If you have a superintendent that's in their 50s or in their 60s, right? My superintendent has three kids that all went to the same college that I went to, right? And they all graduated a few years before me, right?
So really for him, it's something that he can relate to. Right? The experiences through his child's eyes is similar experiences through mine. Right?
And it's not that I then, you know, act like one of his children, at least I hope not, but it's that I am able to relate to him in that way of, oh yeah, you know, when Brooke went to college here, you know, did she do X, Y, and Z, right? Then he's able to see me more as a human than he is that person that's in that position that I hired.
Greg Turchetta: Love all of that. Hey, a book to reference.
Apptegy does totally for free for the state SPRA chapters, a book club. And if your state isn't doing one, hit me up afterwards because I actually lead that effort up. And one of the books we use is called super communicators. And you would think, well, we're communications experts, what more do we need to know about this?
And it's exactly the point Elaine just made, the thread that goes through that book, is how to connect to people in a more powerful way. And it really comes back to the questions and that empathy piece. And the book is phenomenal about it, it's called Super Communicators. If you wanna look it up, read it, get it.
If you wanna do a book club in your state, let me know. But no, absolutely. And the other part of that, think the final There we go, thank you very To your point, Elaine, too, is if you're gonna understand the customers, you gotta be able to understand people at all ages, right? I mean, and especially the parents, that's such a great point.
All right, so remember the top three priorities, looking through that lens Elaine just gave you, you're not a finance expert, you probably are a conflict management expert because you dealt with that.
Diane says, was a twenty two year old vice president of marketing. I can relate, but keep in mind that ageism for comms directors is the same for us as over fifty five. Where they think you're not current. Absolutely.
That sword cuts both ways, right? You're outdated, you're a dinosaur. Can you learn something new? Do you know how to use AI?
I mean, right? I mean, all of those things.
And there's tech directors the same way. I've worked with some tech directors that are phenomenal. They understand communications, right? Superintendents are starting to get to understand communications more because their job is surrounded by it.
I said this to anybody that will listen, there's two things that get a superintendent fired. One is politics and the other is communications. Notice I didn't say academics because that's the reality. And Elaine alluded to it too, being in the person in the office and somebody goes, what does he or she do?
That's the last thing you want as a comms director asking. No, you want them to know your value. You want them running for you going, get Elaine, we need to talk about this and come up with an answer. Right?
That's when you've gotten to the level of trust, which is where we're trying to get.
All right, so what did we come up with?
This is where we need it, right? We need this overlap where there's success. We need all three working in the same space where we each bring our point of view to it and we solve problems.
We don't need this. This is what too many of us are in, the silos.
And so let's go back to this for a second, because there's an example that we can talk about real quick. Let's go back to COVID. Nobody wants to talk about COVID, but this is really, in my mind, education during COVID did some of its best work. It found a way to evolve.
It didn't How many times were we talking about e learning and doing things online prior to twenty nineteen? Then all of a sudden, boom, it had to happen and it had to happen in weeks. So let's apply this example. Take a minute, put it in the chat.
What do you think if you weren't in a school district at that time, even better, right? Just look at it now and go, we're going to online learning exclusively in two weeks.
What are the questions that are gonna be asked by the superintendent, the comms director and the tech director as to how we tackle that problem?
Elaine, give me a couple right off the top of your head.
Elaine Kong: Let's see what they come up with in the chat first. I don't want to take somebody's idea in there.
Greg Turchetta: Yeah. How to communicate to parents what's happening, absolutely.
What's the cost? What are the logistics? How do we tell families? How do we tell staff?
Elaine Kong: How do we help our teachers prepare? That is so, so key. They're the ones that are front lines. Right? They're in the classroom. They're dealing with the kids. Absolutely.
Greg Turchetta: How do we reach those with barriers to tech? Absolutely.
No Wi Fi. Yeah, that was a problem.
What about from the superintendent? A lot of you are diving into the comms and tech.
How do we manage face to face to virtual? Yep. What's the superintendent gonna be looking at?
Because there's a big one that comes to mind for me.
That uncomfortable pause.
Yes, you're right, Diane. That wasn't the one I was thinking about, but money certainly is problem.
Yep, Rose, tension.
Elaine Kong: Huge, yep, tension with the school board and managing expectations and politics.
Absolutely. I mean, was huge, I think, for all districts during COVID, right? I don't think you had a school district that just had five star ratings across the board from all your constituents and the board.
Greg Turchetta: No. I remember board meetings where there was the mask issue was becoming a blood sport.
Yeah. How to make sure learning's happening.
The one I'm thinking of from the superintendent point of view is how do we let everybody know it's gonna be okay?
Because that apple cart just got turned over. And we're going to find our way through it. But the superintendent, and especially from a messaging point of view, and from a comms point of view, we're going to message the process. But how do we let everybody know we're going to find a way through this successfully because that's what we do?
Elaine Kong: Making sure that staff feel okay, right? There was just so much misinformation and there was always fear, right? I think fear was the big piece of it. How do you make sure that your staff members feel safe, right? Even in their own homes, right? When they're doing everything, you know, online with kids and dealing with digital, you know, having parents that are in the next room or in the same room as their child learning and having that criticism from families that you never got when they were just in person at school.
Greg Turchetta: So true.
And then many parents thought that they could be homeschooled until they went through that and said, no, I can't do that.
Let's talk about when it doesn't go well. Right? Because the flip side of this is okay. So if we go back, we go to this example. If it stays siloed, what can go wrong?
Unreported child abuse. Yeah, fear and concerns, of course.
If it goes wrong, well, all of a sudden there was automated attendance messages that didn't get turned off and we didn't talk about that. And so now parents are getting these messages saying their kids aren't in class, but they're online. And then other people are having trouble connecting. And then there's cybersecurity issues, students to hack the system, communications is trying to figure out how to get everything they need, and then you end up behind.
And yes, Kevin's right, families end up left in the dark, literally and figuratively. They can't connect, they can't get in, they don't have information. So that's what makes this piece critical is those silos have to come down. Now, unfortunately, I think some school districts after COVID kind of reverted back to their old ways.
Because I really had hoped after COVID, this innovation cycle, this ability to be agile and move, K-12 would keep. And we would keep pushing forward with it. And some have, but some fell back right into their silos because it's comfortable, right? And that's the part is, it's not politics, it's kids.
Yeah, our non English speaking families were the ones that show up to school building the first day of online learning, showed us how important communication is to those families and communicating them into their preferred language. And just because they speak another language doesn't mean they want to be communicated in that language.
And it goes back to the asking the questions. Elaine, are you like that where I would sit in the room and go, okay, what do I need to know? What questions do we need to ask right now? What's an FAQ gonna look like for this? So that that's where we start to make sure we have everything answered.
Elaine Kong: I mean, even before that, it's, you know, what problem are we trying to solve first? Right? Having everybody understand what the problem is or where we're trying to go and then going into, okay, That's what we're trying to solve. That's the goal of this. Okay. Now what do we need to know to solve that common, you know, interest of ours?
Greg Turchetta: Yeah. Absolutely.
Bailey, I'm with you. Always put yourself in the shoes of the audience.
That works in everything. That works internally as well. As Elaine was saying earlier, how do you keep the teachers from losing it? We've got to look at it from the teacher's eyes and tech especially had to look through the teacher's eyes to anticipate what the problems are gonna be getting this done when they've never done it.
Some had, some had been doing some virtual learning, but yeah, whole another level of it.
It also comes back to word choice, right? So this quote here, how many times have you sat in a cabinet meeting and had a superintendent say, well, who should do this?
And how do we do this so you don't create that much additional work for staff? I've heard that one hundreds of times. What's wrong with that statement?
We're waiting for you to feverishly type.
Yes, thank you Erwin. It's not a you thing, it's a we thing. I couldn't say that any better myself. Listen to how different this would sound if I was the superintendent and I said, okay, how can we do this so that we don't create any additional work for our staff? We know they're tapped. We know we can't put another thing on a teacher's plate. You see how that hits just differently?
Now, not that we do that as comms people, but we're gonna be in the room where that's gonna be going on, or the superintendent may blurt it out knowing you just gotta fix it.
I'm working on a presentation for the NSPRA seminar, and I'm working with a school district in Virginia. And I asked the superintendent, I said, what can a comms director do to earn trust in your eyes? And he said something that I thought was fantastic. He goes, be right more than wrong.
Be the voice in the room that's right, right? That's making the suggestions of how we do that. And I think that really speaks back to this is, it's not just the phrasing on the statement, it's the phrasing in the conversation we're having. It's perspective on what we're trying to do.
We're not trying to ask tech to go do something.
In more cases than not, I prefer that my team did more of it as we could and did the majority of the lift, So we had ownership.
All right, so how to ask the best questions. Another book, another book club book. Magic Words by Jonah Bergen, amazing book. Some of what we're gonna show you right here comes straight out of that.
He uses a great example in the book that's not in the slide about how to disarm a conversation. How many times have you come home and ask your significant other or a family member, did you feed the dog?
There's blame in that if the answer is no. Why isn't it and as opposed to saying, hey. Has the dog eaten yet?
Right? It's so subtle, but it just totally flips the conversation to I'll do it. I just wanna know if the dog ate. Right? That's the same thing kind of with that refraining from that accusatory you.
And it's same thing with that framing your questions with could instead of should. Who could do this? How could this work? Not who should do this? Who should do this is what? It's finger point.
And people are ducking and dodging and trying to get out the way of that we don't want.
And then Elaine, you've said this. I'd like to hear you elaborate more on this. Start safe and then build. What does that look like to you?
Elaine Kong: It comes from a place of being curious. Right?
It comes from, you know, okay, where are we? Just ask that question. Right? Okay. Where are we at?
Give me where we're at first. Right? And then, everybody chimes in and kind of gives their perspective and then, we go into, okay, then, okay, that's where we're at. Where do we want to go?
What does it say in our strategic plan that we need to go, right? What is that mission? And then everybody will chime in. Right?
And then refer back to the strategic strategic plan. And then from there, it's very clear as to what needs to happen. Right? And then we go into, okay.
Now, how do we do this? Right? Goes back to, you know, when I was a reporter, Who, what, when, where, why? Always asking those questions.
Very simple basic questions. Who, what, when, where, why? And it's just, you know, going back to the basics of it. It doesn't have to be super complicated.
Right? Because if everybody's on the same page, everybody knows, you know, their everybody's brains are turning from their different perspectives to lead to that main goal.
Greg Turchetta: I love the where are we question too, because one of the things I've always experienced is people in your district don't realize you're in a crisis and you do.
Right? They don't see the ancillary things burning on social media. They don't see the emails coming in. And sometimes you spend a lot of time just agreeing where we actually are. Right?
Elaine Kong: Yeah. I mean, that's why it's like you're laying the foundation, right, for success there. You're laying the foundation because if people understand where you're at and where you're trying to go, you just have to fill in the middle, right, of how we get there, right?
It's like Miley Cyrus said, right? It's about the climb.
Greg Turchetta: Yes, it is.
All right.
Desert Sands Unified School District, they were part of our study. Their tech director let us borrow this quote. And because they approach AI, I alluded to it earlier, AI is the next frontier of problems, right? I was in a conference with tech directors about six months ago, and they asked the question, if your district currently bans AI, raise your hand.
And about seventy five percent of the hand shot up. And I was stunned because banning things isn't the answer. Desert Sands has it right here. Having policies that are fluid, that are agile, that can move, that then inform what's gonna happen at any point.
And something as fluid as AI will be that thing where you guys are gonna have wrestling matches about what do we do? How do the students use it? How do the teachers use it? How do we use it in our work?
If you're in comms and not using some version of AI right now, you're working too hard. Or you're not getting to other things that are more important because of the routine tasks or taking up your time. But this quote to me speaks to that, that fluidity and the ability to navigate constantly changing sands, right? Pun intended.
That's where it's at.
So how do we get to that initial question? Access to info is crucial.
Diversity equals better solutions. The more voices we have at the table from a more diverse audience means we have more perspectives to the problem. And then what are the barriers? And as Elaine said, where do we wanna go? That's so true. Getting the steps are easy once you know the target and your current position.
So what can you do? Regular meetings.
I'm a big one on this, and I'm gonna take a moment on this one, especially for tech. I took a job at a state college once as a communications chief, and the tech department was maligned by everybody. They won't let us do anything. They say no, they do this, they do that.
And being the new guy with a lot of big ideas, especially wanting big changes, I knew I couldn't get anywhere without tech on my side. And I think that's true everywhere, right? So I sat down with the VP of technology and I said, I wanna have a regular team meeting. So I want your team and my team to meet in the short term weekly, because we were talking about website changes.
We were talking about mass communication. We were talking about all of that. And when I sat down and started talking to them and started laying out the vision I had and the timelines that I was looking for, they didn't say no to anything. And I finally said to them, you realize you have a reputation for saying no?
And they said, yeah, because these people go out and do things and buy things and they bring it to us and expect us to implement something that doesn't connect.
Right? So that's where those regular meetings come in. You may not see that what you want to do doesn't work in the schematics of the IT world. You may see that they have a product that they've already been beta testing in the background for free that you want to buy a different version of.
So those regular meetings and again, I wouldn't monthly with technology, certainly more frequently with the superintendent.
If you don't report to the superintendent, you have to have direct access to the superintendent. And that's not just to get media statements approved. That's to get your vision across the finish line. That's to get their support to support you in a cabinet meeting and go, Elaine's right.
We're making that move. We're gonna communicate that way. Let's do it. Get what she needs to do it.
Shared PD, yeah. PD time's hard to get, but it's invaluable. So you can have those conversations. And then shared destinations, more information, the clearer the picture.
Elaine hit on a lot of these. And these are something that we talked about early on. These are the key takeaways, right? If you're sitting here going, okay, all that's great, but how do I do it?
This to us is the money slide. Make the argument for a seat at the executive decision making table to be there at ideation, not just communication time. Right? How many of us have been brought in? I need a video, I need a brochure, for what? And then you find out they're doing this whole one to one computer initiative they've been working on for a year and no one's told you yet.
Right? That's communication time, that's not ideation. And I would tell them, if you brought me in at ideation, there's a lot of questions that I'm gonna ask that are gonna inform the decisions we make moving forward well before we communicate, right? You have to have a seat at that table. If you don't, it says, I mean, is point blank. If you don't have a seat at that table, it says more about your superintendent's view of communication than yours.
So get regular meetings with tech. Get it with the superintendent. Tell him it's just a check-in. It doesn't have to be initiative based. It could give you, as Elaine was saying, to get to know them. Right, to find out what their favorite foods are, to find out where they're going on vacation, even if it's in the hallway. If you just take that time to stop and just have and be people.
Elaine, tackle number three for me because I think you're a master at this.
Elaine Kong: Build rapport and relationships before and ask, and ask is required. Any ask is required. Gotcha. Yeah.
Building rapport. Right? The relationships. Right? It's it's so key. You gotta you gotta dig that well before you go in and you start, you know, asking for water, right?
Asking for things, right? When you have those relationships built, that's going to make everything so much easier, right? And what's one thing that, you know, I do, right? I report directly to the superintendent.
So I do have my regular meetings with him. But I also know he's in meetings constantly, right, with other people, with, you know, our educational partners, with staff members, you know, with his executive team, right, one on ones, you know, with principals, all that different stuff, right? So what I'm able to do is, you know, I understand, you know, where his priorities are, and I'm able to build that rapport by providing him information as well, right? Before he really needs it and anticipating that, right?
So I'm able to go in and every morning I drop off a little blue folder to him and I say, you know, here's some information about a pet project that one of the board members has. Or, you know, this is happening on a campus that's really great that, you you should tell this board member because it's about, you know, x, y, and z that they're really involved in, right? That stuff also builds rapport. It's not just about, you know, being friendly to their face.
Right? It's adding value in that way as well.
Greg Turchetta: I think number four is the most important on this list because it does dovetail exactly what she just said.
If you're gonna go in and you're gonna have data for the superintendent right before they need it, you have to identify the nose before you go. I like to call it that, the nose before you go. Is money gonna be the objection? Well, the tools you're looking at purchasing can consolidate many of the things we currently have.
So it may be revenue neutral. That's a huge detail. That's a no that's gonna stop you at the front door that if you can get past that and keep going, okay, I'm listening. Is it control?
Are you trying to take over something from an area that technology has run for twenty plus years, I. E. The website, which let's be honest, technology probably shouldn't be around the website, the comms team should, it's their job. But we understand that's how it's been in the past. So is it gonna be a control issue?
Is it gonna be competing priorities? Elaine, it's a great idea, but we got three other things that that money has to go to right now. Or technology doesn't have the bandwidth to get that done. That's okay, my team does, but identify all of that.
It has to be where you can build that value, build value in the idea for full support. Otherwise you're never gonna get to a yes.
And Lainer said number five, bring data to support all recommended changes and viewpoints. You should be the most researched person in the room, even if it's not your area. If I was bringing a big idea forward, I had one on one meetings with finance, technology, academics, anybody else that I had to, to make sure I had all the no's covered, make sure that I had this bulletproof plan that when they came in, the only objection they really had to was change.
And Elaine beat this one to the point that I think you're hopefully clear on it now. If it's not in a strategic plan, it's not one of your must haves.
Well, it's three more years, Greg, till we do the strategic plan. Great, there it is. Start arguing for it now.
I go two different ways on this conversation. I have had goal seven in a strategic plan because I had all the other areas. Well, the superintendent said it's in a strategic plan, you gotta do it. I heard that enough.
So I didn't like it being baked into the other topics. I liked having my own standalone goal because then it gave me the ability to say no. I'd really like to help you with that, but this is what we've agreed is our work. These are my priorities and you're not on this list currently.
It cuts both ways. Sometimes that's hard and other times it's easier to be baked into other goals depending on what's going on. But if you're not having that conversation, we're not spending enough time in the strategic part of our brains. People in that district have to see you as a strategic visionary.
Are you a manager or are you a visionary?
What do I mean by that? Are you a doer or are you an idea person? Are you challenging viewpoints or are you writing press releases? Yes, the process work has to be done. But at the end of the day, I guarantee you if I pulled the lane superintendent aside, she would tell that's a thought leader. That's somebody that challenges the way we look at things every day.
And that's the ultimate goal, We're running low on time. If you guys have any other questions or anything on this list you wanna talk about, please let us know.
Almost there.
Districts thrive not because of the leaders individual talents, but because of those leaders dedication to working together and always finding common ground in their purpose and work. That is kind of like the strategic plan, or actually probably the mission statement for every district. That's what we've got to do. At the end of the day, it's about kids.
And I was never bashful about saying that.
I would say to somebody, we all agree at this table, we're here to do what's best for students, right?
Then this idea is best for students.
May not be best for the union, may not be best for the teachers, parents may not like it right away. How many parents like a cell phone ban?
I don't know how many of them feel different about it now that it's in place. If you're in a state that has had a cell phone ban go through, the results are somewhat striking. But the angst on the front end was just as bad. Elaine's nodding. Think she lived it.
Elaine Kong: It's always much it's so much worse while it's an idea, right? But then when it's implemented, it's it's like, wait. I can see the positives in this, right? I think carrying the positives through the planning process of it really helps people see the light.
Greg Turchetta: Absolutely. All right, hey, if you're going to ENSPA, looking forward to seeing you there. If you're not or you wanna go to another conference that is equal, and when I say on par with ENSPA, attendees have said it, not me. It's our SchoolCEO conference. It's held in Little Rock at the end of September.
This is about what parents want breaking through noise in the era of choice. If you're having enrollment issues in your district, this is where you want to be. It's two days. We bring in speakers from outside of education. It's like going to five or six different TED talks all brought together.
It's phenomenal. It's an event that if you don't have it in your budget this year, find a way to get it in there, we'll work with you. But this is something you wanna be at.
Thank you guys for everything.
My email address is my first name dot last name at apptegy.com. If you have any questions, you want to talk about anything, you want to talk about how to get initiatives through. Since I've joined Apptegy, that's what I've spent a lot of time doing is helping comm directors figure out how to get their improvements through. So there's been a lot of conversation as the comms chief and then on this side of it, helping people get there. Elaine, if they wanna reach out to you?
Elaine Kong: Yeah. I'll put my email in the chat as well.
Greg Turchetta: Awesome. Thank you, Rose. Thank you guys for making it. Thank you. Hey, listen. We know you could have been on vacation this week.
I know how many of my friends that are in your chairs are on vacation this week. So thank you for taking the time, taking an hour out of your day to spend with us on this, and hopefully it's something you can take back and make improvement in your district, which is why we do it.
Elaine Kong: I don't know if I sent that to everybody. So my email is ekong@cusd.claremont.edu.
Greg Turchetta: They're investigative. They can find you.
Elaine Kong: Okay.
Greg Turchetta: Awesome. Thank you, everybody. Have a great week. Have a safe summer. And back to school is only, what, a couple months away? Sorry I said it.
Elaine Kong: Why'd you have to say it?
Greg Turchetta: And thank you, Elaine, for being a part of this with us.
Elaine Kong: Of course, this was great.
Thank you, everyone, for chiming in in the chat and adding your ideas and your perspectives. That makes it so much more valuable.
Greg Turchetta: Awesome, take care everybody.
