District communication is under more pressure than at any point in recent history. School choice has made enrollment competitive. Social media has made misinformation fast. Chronic absenteeism has revealed that disconnected families are a measurable academic risk. And staff capacity is stretched thin.
Yet most districts still operate with communication systems that were built for a different era: one-way broadcasts, siloed channels, inconsistent branding, and reactive crisis management. The result is a community that does not feel informed, staff who are overwhelmed, and leadership that has no clear picture of what is working.
This session gives districts a shared language and a structured path forward.
Related Resources
Apptegy's latest communications solutions
Attendance Pro: An AI-powered two-way SMS attendance system with complete workflows and real-time insights to support earlier interventions.
Community Experience: AI-powered hub that delivers fast answers for your entire school community, plus automatic routing for every question and real insights for leaders.
Staff Connect: An internal communications hub that brings staff messaging, intranet pages, and resources into one place, driving collaboration and engagement.
What does it look like to unify communication across an entire district? How about engaging families in today's noisy information environment? Or empowering school staff to be part of the larger district narrative? Read about how school systems across the country are making the most of their partnership with Apptegy.
Join us for two days of practical strategies, deep connections and time to wrestle with school leadership's biggest ideas. With all-new breakout sessions, keynotes and workshops this year, you’ll leave ready to put ideas into action.
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Transcript
Greg Turchetta: Happy Friday, everybody! It's June 12th, which means one of two things. Either you're outside of your school year, which has already ended, and you're somewhere between getting a bunch of stuff done and vacation, or you're two, frantically wrapping up a school year, and if that's the case, thank you for making time to join us, or three.
Greg Turchetta: you're both of those things, so you couldn't make it today, and you're watching our recording. So if you're watching this recording, thank you for making time for your professional development. I'm excited to share this with you today. It's our brand new presentation called Level Up, Fixing the Communication Systems Frustrating Your Families.
I'm your tour guide, Greg. I got Barrett with me, running the things behind the scenes.
Greg Turchetta: If we haven't met, my name's Greg Turchetta. I'm the Strategic Communications Advisor here at Apptegy. I've spent 10 years as a Senior Chief Communications Officer in Florida and South Carolina prior to joining Apptegy. Before that, 22 years in TV news.
So, customer service has been something that has been in my radar in my entire career. Bottom left.
Greg Turchetta: corner is my family. I have 3 well-adjusted kids. They're dating 3 well-adjusted adults, and they're all out of our house. I have 3 dogs, but now I'll shift to customer service here a little bit.
Barrett, those pictures on the right, can you tell where they're from?
Barrett Goodwin: Looks like Disney to me.
Greg Turchetta: That is correct, sir. These are Disney's Magic Kingdom's latest customer service edition, and since we're talking customer service, I want to show you what's possible, right? So, that's my two daughters and my wife on one picture, and my sister and her… and my brother-in-law on the other. That's us at… this first picture is, Pirates.
Greg Turchetta: That dog ain't there.
Greg Turchetta: That dog's not there. The bone is. There's a photographer sitting out front, and she has a prop, she hands me the bone, and tells everybody, look over there, I'm gonna put the dog from the ride into your picture. And then you scan your little magic pass, and then about 3 hours later, you get that picture.
The other one, that's Main Street, USA. Those balloons aren't real.
Greg Turchetta: But my daughter's holding her hand up like this, and everybody's looking, and how cool is that, right?
Greg Turchetta: this is… when we talk customer service, these are the expectations that are getting set of our parents and families, because when they go and have these experiences, I mean, these are next level, right? I don't expect you to do this in a school.
Greg Turchetta: But this is what's possible, and this is what businesses are constantly refining and readjusting to, to create a more unique, memorable experience. And that's what we have to compete with. And that's tough when it comes to expectations and attention.
Greg Turchetta: Alright, I want you to meet Maria. Maria's a story about too many channels and zero answers. Maria could be any parent in your school district. She has 3 kids, and she's trying her best to stay connected.
Greg Turchetta: She's checking the district app, the school app, the coaches app, the lunch accounts, she has a login for that. Whatever teacher two-way variants of tools that are being used, whether it's an Apptegy tool, a ClassDojo, Remind, they've got all the teachers want all these different things.
Greg Turchetta: She's getting texts from teachers and a coach. She's checking your registration system, your district and classroom newsletters, your parent portal, your unmanaged parent Facebook group, your website, and your calendars.
Greg Turchetta: And they don't always match what the parent group's saying.
Greg Turchetta: Family engagement starts with the experience of trying to connect, and right now, it's exhausting.
Greg Turchetta: Because by my most conservative count, Maria probably has 12 platforms, 14 logins, and no single place to go when she has a real question for your district. And last week's question was a simple one.
Greg Turchetta: She has an 8th grader who is missing assignments. Now, she has a little urgency to it, because the grading period closes this Friday. So on Monday, she emailed the teacher.
Greg Turchetta: Wednesday, with no reply, she called the main office.
Greg Turchetta: Wednesday, she's transferred to a counselor. Counselor left a voicemail for a teacher. Wednesday, she sent a message through the school app.
Greg Turchetta: She's still not sure anybody received it. And Friday, the grading period ended, without her question being answered.
Greg Turchetta: Now, I'm not saying that happens everywhere, and I'm not saying we don't provide phenomenal customer service, but that experience happens somewhere in every district on a weekly basis. We're not perfect.
Greg Turchetta: But these happen because of systems, not effort.
Greg Turchetta: So the simple question is, in your school district.
Greg Turchetta: Who owns a parent question from start to finish?
Greg Turchetta: If the answer is, well, that depends. Or, well, multiple people, or whoever gets it first, then no one owns it.
Greg Turchetta: Meanwhile, the charter school across town, they've got one app, one phone number, and a person who answers before the third ring.
Greg Turchetta: Yes, it's a different scale, but again, to the parent experience, that's all they see.
Greg Turchetta: Because, really, Maria didn't need more communication. You guys do a phenomenal job of pushing information out. She just needed one clear answer.
Greg Turchetta: And let's be clear, communication isn't the pushing of information, it's two-way in the resolving of the question. And that's what we're being judged on.
Greg Turchetta: One missed question versus a thousand messages pushed out.
Greg Turchetta: And it's based on an outdated model.
Greg Turchetta: And it goes something like this. Broadcast, response, resolution, relationship. Most districts live in broadcast. Like I said, we're phenomenal at pushing information out.
Greg Turchetta: Many reach… many to some reach response. You have systems in place to answer questions and to get information back, but few deliver consistent resolution, and even fewer build relationships at scale. So, I want our goal not to be better messaging, I want our goal to be fewer unanswered questions. Make sense?
Greg Turchetta: All right. Helping Maria? Most districts are optimized to send, right? We talked about that.
Families need you to resolve issues, which means we don't have a communication problem. I'm not saying your communication plan is bad. I'm not saying your system's bad. You have an access problem.
Greg Turchetta: And there's a lot of layers to this.
Greg Turchetta: And here's why. We're working off an outdated model.
Greg Turchetta: Forever, schools have controlled the channels, and families have carried the burden. And what I mean by that is, schools decide where information lives, which tools they want to use, and how the communication's going to flow, and at what speed, and where. So families have had to figure out where to go, try multiple places, or follow up when no one responds.
Greg Turchetta: And I'll take you back to the beginning of the year, because that was always my worst experience as a parent. Open house.
Greg Turchetta: When you go to open house, say you're in high school, you're meeting 7, 8 teachers.
Greg Turchetta: And you've got 7 or 8 teachers who are telling you they're going to communicate with you in 7 or 8 different ways. The principal might do it a different way, and the district's doing it another way over here. It's zero to overwhelm. Now, not all districts are doing it that way, but that is the critical moment that families have to figure it out.
We need to make it more simple, because otherwise you end up like the woman on the right.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, so, question time.
Greg Turchetta: Can a parent get an answer to a basic question in under two steps from your district?
Greg Turchetta: Is there exactly one place you're telling families to go with questions?
Greg Turchetta: Can you, the district, see unanswered questions in real time and track them to make sure they get answered?
Greg Turchetta: And do you have a defined response time expectation across roles? Now, no one expects teachers to be answering questions now, now, now, now, right? They're teaching. Principals, they're busy.
But what is the expectation? In my districts, it was 24 hours.
Greg Turchetta: Or same day if it was a matter of urgency. But do we… do we clearly lay that out for everybody, so that our customer service standard stays the same across the district?
Greg Turchetta: And… this is a big one. If a parent emails the wrong person, is it rerouted or restarted? Or does it go into the abyss?
Greg Turchetta: See, because communications is an infrastructure, and I want you to think of it this way. Transportation does a great job getting students to school, curriculum and instruction teaches them, but communication is that connector that connects everything. And when communication breaks, everything still runs, just worse, and slower, and most importantly.
Greg Turchetta: with less trust.
Greg Turchetta: So, this isn't on the communications as a department, this is on communications as a core operations throughout your schools and district.
Greg Turchetta: Because there's a cost to this chaos and confusion, of that issue of unknown… unknown communication. If no one… if there's no owner, I mean, there's a good chance there's going to be no response.
Greg Turchetta: And if there's no response, we're losing trust.
Greg Turchetta: And if there's no trust, we're losing students.
Greg Turchetta: And in this climate we're in right now, we cannot afford to lose a single student based on customer service that didn't meet their standards or needs.
Greg Turchetta: Because I showed you the Disney experience up front, right?
Greg Turchetta: Corporate America has created a know-now mentality. No matter where I go, whether I want to get a question answered from my bank at midnight on a Tuesday, if my doctor's office is texting me, all I have to do is hit C to confirm my appointment, or cancel.
Greg Turchetta: I don't have to do anything complicated, right? Two-way communication is not an advanced concept anymore. It's an expectation.
Greg Turchetta: And with cell phone and everybody having access to information now, now, now, that competition from every other business is driving the demand and the expectation that you're currently feeling, which is why the standard has moved. No one's saying, you're doing a bad job.
Greg Turchetta: Everybody's saying this expectation has moved, and we've got to keep up. Because two-way communication is now the new baseline to building trust. And if families can get an instant answer everywhere else, they expect it from you, too.
Greg Turchetta: I mean, it makes sense, right?
Greg Turchetta: But have we kept up with that pace? That's the challenge. Okay, so here's a test for you. Your child wakes up sick, and you need to report the absent and find out what they're going to miss.
Greg Turchetta: So, where would you go first? Your website?
Greg Turchetta: Chatbot?
Greg Turchetta: Teacher room? Where would you go? And is it obvious? Is it obvious to a parent?
And probably more importantly, have we set the expectation and the standard of telling parents where to go for each thing?
Greg Turchetta: Now, how many clicks are you in? And at any point, would you have hesitated and given up?
Greg Turchetta: This is too hard. I can't find the information I need.
Greg Turchetta: Nothing's routing me there.
Greg Turchetta: Because, did you know, on your website, the average viewer is going to give you one and a half clicks? That's it. If I can't find the information, I give up, I go away.
Greg Turchetta: Now, if you've made it through the process, how many of you would have found the answer in one to two steps? Who might need three to five? Who needed more? Don't do it now, but do it later.
See where it comes up, because you going through the parent journey is often the best communications test there is.
Greg Turchetta: Because, ladies and gentlemen, this is your system.
Greg Turchetta: Not your org chart, not your intention. This. Whatever this experience is for your parent is your system.
Greg Turchetta: Now, I took it upon myself to say, you know what? I'm gonna go do this test, and I picked one of our client districts, who happens to have a chatbot on their homepage, and I went into the chatbot and I asked the question, and it told me, right here, go fill out this form. Okay.
Greg Turchetta: Got an answer, got a form, gotta fill it out. I like that.
Greg Turchetta: A bit, let me clarify. Other sites I went to said, to report an absence, parents have two options. Submit a signed, handwritten note from the parent. How am I supposed to get that to school?
In the kid's backpack?
Greg Turchetta: What is this, 1995?
Greg Turchetta: An email note sent to the school's attendance email address. Where do I find that, and why is that not on this form right here telling me, with a link?
Greg Turchetta: Like, make it hard. I'm hoping that's what it is down there in blue. That might be a link, don't you think?
Greg Turchetta: And then over here, or a telephone call, or again, a written note. This is another district. You have to do it within 24 hours, so now it's time certain. I've got to stop my day call, I've got to find the number, I've got to find an email address.
That's too hard. I'm already dealing with a sick kid. My day's already been thrown into a tizzy, and now I gotta work.
Greg Turchetta: To get you the information you're requiring of me.
Greg Turchetta: See where that leaves a bad taste in my mouth?
Greg Turchetta: Now, there is a different way, there's a better way, and it currently exists.
Greg Turchetta: If a student's marked absent, versus where most of our systems currently stop, families get a text in their language. They can reply to that text in their language. They can submit a doctor's note.
Greg Turchetta: They can answer the question as to why their child misses school. Oh, and then there's AI, which also codes it, and keeps track of it all for the school district, and starts firing reports back when we start hitting chronic levels, which would be escalation, gives you insights, and it gives you reports. This system exists, and only after she has it.
Greg Turchetta: But that's the new standard. A lot easier than putting a note in a backpack and hoping for the best.
Greg Turchetta: Here's the new customer service standard overall. That's just an attendance example. But every question has one clear entry point. Now, I'm not saying they all have to be the same entry point, but as a parent, I want to know where I'm supposed to go.
Greg Turchetta: Every message has a known owner. So on the receiving end, when I worked at a district, we had systems and stuff would pile in, and am I supposed to answer this? Is transportation going to answer this? Who's going to answer this?
Greg Turchetta: Right? That creates stress and confusion on your staff.
Greg Turchetta: And then every inquiry has a response time expectation. We talked about that earlier, 24 hours, 48 hours, same day, close a business, what is it?
Greg Turchetta: So that every family knows where to go before they have a problem.
Greg Turchetta: And that's critical.
Greg Turchetta: I've spent a lot of time on airplanes, right? And flight attendants are trained to know exactly what to do before there's a problem, so that when the problem comes, it's just a system they follow. Are your parents like that? Have we trained them well enough?
Because we can.
Greg Turchetta: Because if your families have to navigate your system to get help, that system is failing.
Greg Turchetta: And that's sad, that's true.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, now I want to introduce you to something called the five-level community, five-level communication maturity Framework. Level 1?
Greg Turchetta: Let me dive into it. Level 1, right here. Reactive communications. It's ad hoc.
Communication's urgent or informal. There's no consistent platform. There's a few individuals that do it. There's no defined ownership or structure to it.
It's manual and fragmentation… it's fragmented. There's no documentation, and if a staff member leaves your district, it disrupts everything.
Greg Turchetta: There's no identity to it. It's reactive to crises, but with few or no visual standards, no brain guiding.
Greg Turchetta: And it's enrolled families only. It's a one-way broadcast with no audience segmentation. Okay, that's the bottom, level one.
Greg Turchetta: Level 2, we're going to move up to structured communications. Now we're going to build some processes behind it. You have some core channels, text message, email, website. They exist.
Greg Turchetta: But they're not different. There's no personalization as to why I should go there. Your central office leads the effort. Principals and other leaders send updates via district-approved templates.
That's a good step forward from just a few people.
Greg Turchetta: Basic workflows exist, but some systems are still disconnected.
Greg Turchetta: Logos, colors, and messaging guidelines are starting to be available for primary users, starting to get a brand developed.
Greg Turchetta: Campus-focused. We have some two-way communication, but primarily among enrolled families.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, level 3, middle of the road. Strategic communications. District has a multi-channel communication strategy with consistent identity and messaging. I like that.
The staff's contributing. Teachers and coaches now share campus stories with role-based permissions within your communication system. Awesome.
Greg Turchetta: You have integrated systems that exist and document… it's thorough and consistent. Staff knows what's expected and how to use it. There's a consistent brand. District messaging priorities are recognized across all touchpoints.
Obviously, that's a big level up from 1 and 2.
Greg Turchetta: And guidelines are widely followed. We're getting some systems in branding. And prospective audiences are tailored messaging for families and staff. Now we're starting to individualize, which is great.
Level four, relationship building, engaged communication. Now we're seeing two-way communication. Remember I said two-way is an expectation.
Greg Turchetta: And basically, you gotta get to level 4 before it shows up.
Greg Turchetta: It's strategic and specific to stakeholder needs. Yes, you're talking to me as the parent, you're serving me.
Greg Turchetta: Widespread adoption. Most staff proactively communicate with their audiences. Awesome. It's analytics-informed. AI is improving accessibility.
Staff are trained and onboarded to communications best practices. We're starting to hum.
Greg Turchetta: Staff storytelling reinforces district message. Everything's now being aligned.
Greg Turchetta: Feel the synergy coming together here. And then there's community impact. Community shapes communications with tools like AI, chat, plus two-way tools. So now, the community's starting to self-serve.
It's starting to ask… provide information that adds to the plans.
Greg Turchetta: Level 5, community-driven communications advocacy building. AI personalized, analytics optimized timing and channel for maximum stakeholder efficiency.
Greg Turchetta: Everyone's a storyteller. Huge for enrollment marketing, for branding. Students, families, and community partners are sharing the district's story, too. Now our message is starting to reach critical voice.
You have an all-in-one platform. Data's centralized, systems are aligned to stakeholder needs, and the transitions are seamless from tool to tool.
Greg Turchetta: Your brand is your culture, and your external communications reflects internal values and family communications. And you have brand ambassadors. You have families and community members who are actively communicating and advocating on your behalf.
Greg Turchetta: We all agree that would be the optimal standard. So where are you? Did any one of those five hit home?
Greg Turchetta: Let's talk about the three transitions that matter the most. Level 1 to 2. To go from reactive to structured, you're establishing a real communication plan, consistent channels, and documented process without overwhelming existing staff.
Greg Turchetta: And the last part of that sentence is critical. In levels 1 and 2, your staff is working harder than they need to, at least the ones that are participating. The rest of them aren't communicating at all, and that's a big problem.
Greg Turchetta: Level 2 to 3, we're going from structured to strategic, building a branded presence, right, involving that campus staff without losing your district brand control, and just beginning to reach prospective families. So that means Level 1 families aren't even really… we're not getting to prospective families, we're just talking to current families. There's an enrollment issue.
Greg Turchetta: Level 3 to 4, from strategic to engaged. Once you build those two-way communication systems, now answers come to families instead of families having to chase them down.
Greg Turchetta: And those are the new standard, right? And then level 4 to 5 was when you go from being fully engaged to that community ambassador standard, which is when a crisis happens… now, think about that. If a crisis happened in your district, if you were a level 1, where do you think the trust would be on that?
Greg Turchetta: Versus level 5, when the community is actually contributing to telling the story and singing your graces because something horrible happened, but still said, you're a quality district. I want to be a level 5 in the crisis. I want to be a level 5 every day.
Greg Turchetta: Alright, but there's a cost at each level, right? Level 1, you're losing families before they ever step on your campus.
Greg Turchetta: And in a school choice environment, we can't have that.
Greg Turchetta: You know, they look at your… they do a website search, a visit, a phone call, that's it. If they can't quickly find answers or reach someone, they make a decision, and they choose a system that feels easier to navigate, and that's not you.
Greg Turchetta: Level 2. This is where you see absenteeism start much earlier than you think.
Greg Turchetta: Chronic absenteeism rarely begins with a disengaged student. It begins with a family that learned your system's too hard to navigate. And as the example I showed you earlier.
Greg Turchetta: A missed question, a delayed response, a moment where getting help takes too much effort, they stop asking for help.
Greg Turchetta: You can't fix chronic absenteeism if you can't spot the trend and get the help to the family. I was talking to someone earlier today, and I said, people don't realize that absenteeism isn't a communications issue. It's all the other factors. I mean, parents know kids need to go to school.
It's all the other factors that get in the way of going to school.
Greg Turchetta: And that's where the intervention helps.
Greg Turchetta: But, if you don't know that, you can't get there, and then the attendance slips, and now we have more problems.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, that level 3, I mentioned you were building awareness, but you were still not earning trust, which is critical. Level 1, 2, and 3, you're not… you're not building trust, you're bleeding it.
Greg Turchetta: You're reaching more people at level 3, which is great, and you're doing it more consistently, but trust isn't built through what you send, it's built through how you respond.
Greg Turchetta: Right?
Greg Turchetta: Trust isn't built with the actual crisis that happens, trust is built with how you respond to the crisis.
Greg Turchetta: That's what you're being judged on. Level 3 is where districts talk more, but they still don't resolve enough.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, Level 4, things are… tide's turning. Families get answers without chasing, and everything changes.
Greg Turchetta: And I probably don't need to say anything more than that.
Greg Turchetta: But I do want to point this to you. Staff capacity improves as a result of this, because the staff isn't running with their hair on fire.
Greg Turchetta: they actually have a system that they can follow, and it's easier. And families no longer have to work to get help. The system works for them.
Greg Turchetta: Because I fear for too many districts right now, the system doesn't work for anybody, you or the families.
Greg Turchetta: Districts that move to Level 4, they identify attendance issues earlier, because two-way systems surface problems before they become patterns. And I think that goes beyond attendance. You'll identify any issues. If we're not communicating enough, we can judge that by the two-way questions that are coming back.
Greg Turchetta: Right? If you have a chatbot on your website, the top 5 questions being asked
Greg Turchetta: are where you need to pour more information for answers, right? That's just insights.
Greg Turchetta: Level 5 District. The system answers questions instantly and adapts to families automatically.
Greg Turchetta: That's customer service.
Greg Turchetta: No.
Greg Turchetta: I mentioned the AI-powered tools, right?
Greg Turchetta: This is not a nice-to-have anymore, this is a have-to-have. Because every other website that you interact with has AI-powered tools, has a chatbot to answer questions, except my school.
Greg Turchetta: That's a problem.
Greg Turchetta: Because, as I said earlier, a parent wants information around the clock. I don't live in a 9-3 world. School does, I don't.
Greg Turchetta: I have to make decisions at 11 o'clock tonight what I'm doing with my kids tomorrow.
Greg Turchetta: So that's why this is critical. This two-way and AI-powered is, this is the new way of doing business.
Greg Turchetta: And attendance issues are addressed within hours, not days. Messaging adapts to each family's language and preferences. Can't tell you how many districts I talk to that say, we have families that speak 104 languages.
Greg Turchetta: Well, what if your tools don't adapt to all 104?
Greg Turchetta: How many are we really truly servicing well?
Greg Turchetta: And then here's another key one. Leaders able to see what families are asking in real time and adjust accordingly. No communication plan that I ever produced was flawless, and no district's gone 100% in its communication. You need that feedback loop of the questions and the artificial intelligence grabbing the insights.
Greg Turchetta: to make sure we're informed, right? Those of us who have studied for the APR know, you know, in the race or RPI procedure, that last piece is called evaluation for a reason. We have to evaluate everything we've communicated and adjust.
Greg Turchetta: And that last piece, the community actively contributing to the district story, that is how we fix enrollment, that's how we build trust, and how we bulletproof our district to future problems.
Greg Turchetta: The system removes waiting guessing and barriers.
Greg Turchetta: Which, for all of you, the work you do is constantly about removing waiting, guessing, and barriers. Don't let the systems you have undermine you.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, here's… across the bigger board, here's the cost of communication friction.
Greg Turchetta: Districts at lower levels of the maturity curve constantly see overburdened staff.
Greg Turchetta: Because you got higher inbound and email volume. I was talking to a district last week, who piloted one of our products, called Community Experience, and they said in 6 months, they cut down on 12,000 phone calls and emails. 12,000?
Greg Turchetta: That somebody at a front desk or at a district office didn't have to answer.
Greg Turchetta: that families could self-serve that basic information. That's powerful, and that is culture at its finest.
Greg Turchetta: to not overburden your staff. We've talked about absenteeism, and how the later identification of the concerns allows big things to become chronic.
Greg Turchetta: Frustrated families. More often than not, you see lower satisfaction scores from families who rate communications as a primary frustration. Families that are leaving for charter school, one of their top three reasons is communications.
Greg Turchetta: Let's fix that.
Greg Turchetta: And then enrollment attrition? You can't be vulnerable anywhere. There's enough working against you between voucher programs and declining birth rate. You can't have your communications, be something that's undermining you and giving your competitor the opportunity to take your students.
Greg Turchetta: And at each level in the real world, it's about building trust. Every unanswered question is a withdrawal from trust.
Greg Turchetta: And every fast, clear answer is a deposit.
Greg Turchetta: Where's your bank account right now?
Greg Turchetta: And then losing families. Districts don't lose families all at once. They lose one unanswered question at a time. And families don't make a big stink most of the time when they withdraw from your district.
It looks like this, just a family walking away in the dark.
Greg Turchetta: Making another decision. Next thing you know, it's 10, 100, 1,000 students that didn't show up this year, and now we're scrambling.
Greg Turchetta: So, if you want to level up, you gotta fix the systems, not the symptoms.
Greg Turchetta: I want to be clear on that. You can see some of the things that are going on. It's the system that's the problem. And you need a system, not more effort.
You guys work your butts off.
Greg Turchetta: I have the utmost respect for the amount of work that's being done. It's… but you can only go so far with the systems you currently have.
Greg Turchetta: And this is not about messaging. It's about answering and resolving questions.
Greg Turchetta: This is not about pushing more, it's about pulling more.
Greg Turchetta: So, where is your district right now?
Greg Turchetta: Now, know this, your level is not your outcome.
Greg Turchetta: we can change this, right? But I want you to just kind of, on a piece of paper to yourself right now, name the single biggest structural barrier to moving forward. Of everything I've showed you today, what popped up in your head and said.
Greg Turchetta: That's gonna be a problem. Is it the technology folks? Is it your school leaders? Is it… what is it?
What do you see as being the barrier?
Greg Turchetta: Because I'm gonna ask you to commit to one specific action within the next 30 days to start down this road.
Greg Turchetta: Because I do a lot of presentations on behalf of Apptegy, and I think this is one of those that we have to look at and say, if this is true, we've got to fix it, right? In this current environment we're in, we just can't keep doing what we're doing, inspecting different results.
Greg Turchetta: In fact, that's the definition of insanity, isn't it?
Greg Turchetta: Okay, so our goal, just to be clear, we want answers instantly, we want personalized communication, we want smarter two-way communication systems that inform us just as well as it informs our families.
Greg Turchetta: And if you've called or messaged your own district today as a parent with a problem, how confident are you you'd get a clear answer on the first try?
Greg Turchetta: Might be worth trying.
Greg Turchetta: I love communication audits. I use the same thing when I go to audit schools. I can tell you that if I walk into any one of your schools, elementary, middle, or high school, within 6 seconds of being in your front office, I can audit the culture and the quality of that school.
Greg Turchetta: Branding. Marketing.
Greg Turchetta: Is it barren?
Greg Turchetta: Is it easy to engage with? Was it easy to engage with even before I got in there? Right? These are the cues your parents pick up on.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, so we're gonna go from chaos to one clear system, we're gonna go from sending to intentional engagement, and we're gonna go from broadcasting to, let's get those questions answered.
Greg Turchetta: Because I want to take you back to Maria, where we started.
Greg Turchetta: What would have changed her experience?
Greg Turchetta: It wouldn't be more platforms. It wouldn't be more communication.
Greg Turchetta: It would be one place, One owner, and one answer.
Greg Turchetta: Because I've said this now probably 4 times, if families have to work to get answers, the system is broken.
Greg Turchetta: So, moving forward, districts have to stop just adding channels, right? Over the years, we've just… a teacher adds this, the principal adds that, the district comms office… communications office added that.
Greg Turchetta: Tech added that It's just giving too many places to be inundated, and not enough places to find certainty.
Greg Turchetta: We gotta stop letting every staff member choose their own tool. We gotta unify this. One unified system for safety, security, ease of use.
Greg Turchetta: And parent trust.
Greg Turchetta: We have to stop treating communications as everyone's job, but no one's responsibility. This… I'm not putting this burden on your head as the district's communicator.
Greg Turchetta: What I'm asking you to do is be the leader of that effort and rein it in. Go upstairs, go to the superintendent, and say, we have got to rein this in, and we've got to make customer service a priority.
Greg Turchetta: And we like to measure. We like to have a lot of outcomes, our strategic plans call for metrics, but we gotta measure what was sent, not what was sent, but what was resolved.
Greg Turchetta: And that's a metric I don't think anybody has.
Greg Turchetta: what percentage What were the number of questions that came in?
Greg Turchetta: How many were resolved, and in what time frame?
Greg Turchetta: That would be advanced. I would just like to get to the first one, which is, how many were actually resolved?
Greg Turchetta: Because much like the example I gave you earlier about my case study, 12,000 emails and phone calls that were resolved by an AI chatbot is a metric.
Greg Turchetta: They weren't phone calls and emails. They were resolved.
Greg Turchetta: Now you have documentation. Now you have proof to a board, to a superintendent, to a strategic plan that says, we're doing the work.
Greg Turchetta: You gotta put it all in one system if you want to track it, otherwise you have no idea what's going on.
Greg Turchetta: And as a comms chief, I always hated that, because I can't control, and I can't protect the district against what I don't know.
Greg Turchetta: And the result is families don't leave at once. They leave one unanswered question at a time.
Greg Turchetta: Response speed builds trust, customer service silence kills it.
Greg Turchetta: That's all Maria knows.
Greg Turchetta: Because she didn't complain about what happened to her, she just left.
Greg Turchetta: So, your next steps, name your level, and in the first 30 days, pick one entry point for family questions, make it clear and visible everywhere. That's a start, right? Let's consider this a communications pilot.
Greg Turchetta: Then I want you to find your gap. In the next 60 days, I want you to define ownership and response expectations. Let's start to put a standard together, and let's train the staff
Greg Turchetta: On that standard, and on where conversations are going to live.
Greg Turchetta: If you don't have a place for it to live, we do. We can show it to you.
Greg Turchetta: You're gonna fix one system in the next 90 days, audit the top 10 parent questions, and ensure clear, fast answer paths for them.
Greg Turchetta: If we know what the top 10 are, and we can figure that out, we know what we need to do. Then I want you to show what changed. Prove to your superintendent the call volume, the parent satisfaction scores, and the staff time. Those numbers went up in a positive direction.
Greg Turchetta: Because that will help your staff retention, that will help your student retention, and that will help your overall culture.
Greg Turchetta: And those are all 3, I think, of every school district employee's top priorities right now.
Greg Turchetta: Okay, before we go, and before I open it up to any questions, if you found this interesting, there's a whole lot more of this to come September 28th and 29th in Dallas, Texas. If you have not been to the SchoolCEO Conference, you have to go.
Greg Turchetta: It is absolutely, it's one of my top two conferences that I've ever attended, and Greg goes to a lot of conferences. It's right there with the ENSPRA Annual Seminar. It's, called All In. We're going to dive into the communications, the customer service, the AI.
Greg Turchetta: If you're watching this as a recording, look deeper into the email that came with this. My friend Barrett's gonna give you a special discount code. If you're watching it live, same thing, you're gonna email with all these resources in it, that will have a discount code for you to take advantage of before the end of the month.
Greg Turchetta: Also, before I go, speaking of School CEO Magazine, if this just got you concerned about customer service, good, I hope so. But if you want more information, our next School CEO Magazine is an entire edition focused on customer service, and it's coming out in mid-July. So, check your mailboxes if you're already signed up. If you're not, go to schoolceo.com,
it's free, sign up, get it every quarter, and you can read past editions right there on our website.
Greg Turchetta: So, thank you all for your time. Listen, I'm… as a strategic communications advisor, I'm here to serve. So, if this struck some curiosity with you, or you now have a to-do list that's too deep for you to figure out how to tackle, let's talk. Reach out to me, greg.turchetta@apptegy.com
Greg Turchetta: I've mentioned many of the products that we have that solve for what's there. We can easily make an appointment, and you can check out all of that to get you going in the right direction. But if anybody has any questions, I'll open it up to questions.
Greg Turchetta: Excellent, yeah, yeah, Barrett put you a link right in the chat that you can grab.
Greg Turchetta: Time with us.
Greg Turchetta: All right, awesome. Looks like everybody just took the information, Barrett, and they're running with it.
Greg Turchetta: So, thank you for, for attending.
Greg Turchetta: Hey, Lucy, thank you.
Greg Turchetta: I appreciate that.
Greg Turchetta: If you're watching this in a recording, and you have questions, same thing still applies. Thanks, Abby. Thanks, Greg. Oh, all my friends are here today!
I love it. All great school communicators.
Greg Turchetta: Alright, we're gonna wrap it up. Thank you guys for your attention. Thank you for… well, I'm gonna leave on this. Thank you for what you do.
I just spent,
Greg Turchetta: the week at two different school PR conferences in Colorado and Arizona.
Greg Turchetta: And the challenges, whether you're in either of those states, are great, just like they are where you are. So I want to thank you for the work you do. As somebody who did that work for 10 years, I appreciate how hard it is.
Greg Turchetta: And I appreciate what I am proposing today, what kind of a lift this is. Believe me, I do. But that's why we're here to help. And that's why I work with Apptegy now, because you guys need a partner in this.
You guys need help in this, because the critics are lining up, and I don't think there's an equal line of help, so…
Greg Turchetta: Thank you for your time, thank you for what you do, and oh, by the way, get some rest this summer, you certainly earned it. Thank you.
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