SchoolCEO's original research explores what capabilities and opportunities are made possible when school communications professionals have (or don't have) access to executive decision making.
Related resources
A Seat at the Table research study
SchoolCEO and NSPRA's research into the relationship between superintendents and school communicators.
Here are a few reasons why schools need public relations professionals.
Championing your comms director
SchoolCEO speaks with those in communications roles in four districts across the country. They explore what others might misunderstand about communication roles.
Generative AI for school communications
Rebecca Bultsma, APR of Westwind School Division in Canada shares her thoughts on how school communicators can and should use AI to help tell their districts' stories.
Transcript:
Brittany Keil: Let's go ahead and get started. Everyone, thank you so much for being here. I know it's the last couple of weeks before school's out. I was in the classroom about a decade. I know how crazy, schools can be around this time, so we really appreciate you making some space for some really exciting research that Melissa and I are excited to share. So I'm gonna go through a couple of things about SchoolCEO and about Apptegy just before we get into the research. So as I mentioned, I've worked for SchoolCEO Magazine.
Just a quick show of hands, you can use the raise hand function, or you can just raise your hand if you have your camera on, which we love. How many of you have heard of SchoolCEO?
Okay, how many of you have gotten our absolutely gorgeous newest issue about Generations?
Can I show it to them? Yeah. It is especially cool because it is shiny, if you can see my picture.
Well, yeah, fantastic. I hope all of you find SchoolCEO useful. Melissa and I work so hard with our team to make sure that it is topical content that can really help you in your roles, no matter who you are, if you're working in a shop of one or with a huge team. And the research that we're talking about today is really all about school communicators. So I'm really excited to dig into that.
So SchoolCEO of course is published by Apptegy and it's a school communications magazine for superintendents, school communications directors, and other school leaders. So we use original research and perspectives to explore all aspects of school leadership and communication and culture. So if you wanna subscribe to SchoolCEO and you don't already feel free to go to schoolceo.com/subscribe, I believe, or you can just email us afterward and we'll make sure that you're on the list. We really started SchoolCEO like talking to superintendents, but as we've continued to work, we've learned that the role of communicating for schools is actually much bigger than superintendents.
It is superintendents, but it also communicators and principals and even teachers. So last year I did my first research project with principals, that was fantastic. So if there are any principals on the call, feel free to email me after, I'm happy to share that with you. So on this slide, you'll notice a few of our more recent issues.
So on the bottom here, we have our recruitment issue, which was the largest survey ever of teachers explaining what they were looking for in new positions. And in the middle is our bonds and boards issue. If you work in schools, you know bonds and boards are important, two similar, but totally different things that you have to focus on as a school leader in leveraging trust. And then finally up here in the corner, we have our internal communications, issue, which is the one that includes the principal study I just mentioned.
So we also have a newsletter, it's called the SchoolCEO Spark. And just like the name implies, we hope the content sparks new ideas on how to market your schools. So every other week, me, Barrett, and our colleague, Heather, send you a couple of things. First, we send a question for you. So it's one thought provoking question to get you thinking deeply about school marketing. By the way, if anyone on this call ever responds to a question, know that real people read it and we get so excited when we get responses. So please respond.
The second thing we'll send you in the same newsletter is two resources to challenge the way you approach marketing and ultimately to help you grow. Three ideas to ponder. So Barrett and I especially are big education nerds. We look all over the internet for the very best in school communication and marketing and education news sources so that you don't have to.
And we love to send the latest insights from our newest research as well. But yeah, please subscribe to our newsletter if you aren't already. I love to plug it because I feel like it's a really great way to stay in touch with what our team is thinking about in the moment. And it's also just a great way to casually start your morning with some interesting school marketing insights.
I always feel a little bit like a salesperson at this point, maybe like QVC, like selling bracelets. But wait, there's more. So in addition to our newsletter, we also have a podcast called SchoolCEO Conversations that highlights the school and private sector leaders who are innovating in the areas of school in communication. So we're right in the middle of season three, and we actually just launched an episode all about social media, where it shines and where it doesn't.
And this episode is really good. I I think it's especially good as we head into the holiday, so definitely give it a listen. I heard from a superintendent yesterday who told us that the podcast is exactly as long as his workout. So if that is your jam, I hope you enjoy it.
So today we're getting to share the results of some of our really exciting research from this year. So earlier in February, we collaborated with NSPRA to launch a national survey to explore the relationship professionals have with their superintendents. And we specifically wanted to understand how many communications professionals have a so called seat at the table and how this impacts their work. I've got a couple of quick numbers up on the slide.
So we closed our survey in February of twenty twenty four. We conducted it in partnership with the incredible folks at NSPRA. And this is kind of a funny coincidence, I always feel like I have to explain, but we had exactly six hundred responses. That wasn't intentional.
We just had a window it was open for, and we happened to close it pre planned exactly when we had six hundred, which made our charts look nice, I think. All right, so let's go ahead and get into some of this research.
So first I wanna start by talking about the goals of our research. So as you can see, we had three major questions we wanted to answer. First, we wanted to know who are today's communications professionals? Second, which communication professionals have a so called seat at the table or access to executive decision making?
And third, how does executive access or lack thereof impact their work? And in this research, we use the phrase a seat at the table. And what we mean is access to the spaces where decisions are being made while they're being made. So you're not being brought into the conversation after decisions are being made by the cabinet or the superintendent and the board, but rather you're in the room where it happens.
NSPRA has done a lot of incredible research over the years on who is working in school comms. For the most part, our data showed a lot of the same findings. So we had, as I mentioned, six hundred respondents all from but two states. We did try to get those last two states, but you know, maybe next time.
So about three quarters of our respondents were women. Most of them are white and the average age is forty three years old. So if you are a forty three year old white woman working in comms, congratulations, you probably have some friends who are similar to you. So who are today's school communicators?
We also wanna talk about their background. So these are the roles that school communicators had before they worked in schools. So nearly half of you are from a PR marketing background, and many of you also have experience as a journalist or another role in school communications. About fifteen percent served as educators, which I found interesting, ten percent as a school staff member.
And for some of you, just under three percent, it was your first professional role.
So my favorite statistic that we came across, and I feel like I may say this maybe two or three times today, but is this. So forty seven percent of school communicators nationally, and our survey was nationally representative, work as a team as one. And for me, this statistic really packs a punch. So on our team, we spend a lot of time talking to school communicators. And while it shouldn't have come as a surprise, it did that so much of the incredible strategy and content and the sheer amount of work that happens in school comps is done by either individuals or those working on very small teams.
So yeah, y'all work hard. Give yourself a pat on the back. I know there's probably some folks on this call who are school communicator superintendents as well. So definitely give yourself a pat on the back.
So for the chat, a quick question. How big is your team, and how big do you wish it was?
Feel free to answer in the chat.
Okay, I am the team to wish it was five.
Wish it was two. One person wish it was three.
Absolutely.
Yeah, this is what we heard in the survey a lot too.
Lots of small teams are folks working solo and lots of people who wish it was a little bit bigger.
Melissa Hite: Someone twelve who wishes it was twenty. Everybody wants, everybody needs more help, it seems like. Absolutely.
Brittany Keil: So moving past the demographics, we came into the research with a couple of hypotheses, and one of them was this. Based on our conversations with school communicators, we assumed that many school communications folks have inadequate access to their superintendents or the spaces where decisions are being made. And for us, this assumption made sense. So after all, we often hear the phrase building the plane while flying it as representative of school comms. And I think there are probably some people on this call who are like, yeah, that's exactly what it feels like.
But what we actually found was something different. So about sixty four percent of our respondents indicated that they either always or often had a seat at the table, and twenty percent said that they sometimes did. So the vast majority of you do have access to the spaces where decisions are being made. Of the sixteen percent of people who don't have access to a seat or who don't have a seat at the table, we did find some interesting correlations.
So first, these communicators are either, are both more likely to work in school districts with fewer than a thousand students, which I found surprising, and then have fewer than ten years of experience in the field, which kind of made sense to me because maybe they're on a bigger team where there's more senior communications folks.
To push things a bit further, we wanted to understand how accessible their superintendent was to them. So how accessible your superintendent is to you on a daily basis.
So we asked our respondents, On a scale of one to five, how accessible is your superintendent to you on a typical workday? And as you can see, most school communicators rated their superintendents as pretty accessible, with seventy seven percent of respondents saying that their super was either extremely or very accessible to them. And this is good news.
But is it enough?
We know that school communicators don't just work with the superintendent. They have to work with many people throughout the district to be successful in their roles, including with principals, with teachers, with external stakeholders. And we know that while executive access is important, we know that understanding what a school communicator does is just the beginning of understanding the value a school communicator can bring to the table. And while the trend held that superintendents generally understood what school communicators do, the rest of the answers were really surprising.
So first, let's talk about principals. So our participants were asked, on a scale of one to five, how well do you feel principals and other leaders in your district understand what you do? And while superintendents, by and large, understand and value what school communicators do, school communicators said that most principals only understood their role somewhat. Only thirteen percent of our respondents said that principals understood their role very well, and these numbers were even rougher for teachers. So when we asked about how well teachers and other staff not in administration understand the role of school communicators, nearly thirty six percent of school communicators chose not at all or slightly, and fewer than five percent said very well.
And let's think back to that forty seven percent number. So if so many of school communicators are working on teams of one in a role that's already prone to isolation, what does it mean for the field that so few of the staff and colleagues surrounding school communicators understand and therefore value what you do?
So why does this matter? Let's think back to what we've learned so far. First, we know that while school communicators generally have access to the executive spaces and positive relationships with their superintendents on a day to day basis, trouble arises when we look at the relationships that communication staff have with principals, teachers, and other staff. It's not that those relationships are bad, it's just that they may not exist, and that mutual understanding might not just be there. And second, we know that school communicators work on pretty small teams.
What our findings suggest is this. While it's good that most school communicators have a seat at the table and access to their superintendent, it's not enough. They also need relationships with other leaders and staff and systems and communication to help ferry information between the school levels and the district levels. And I feel like one school communicator put it really clearly. It's really hard for me to tell the positive stories of our schools, our teachers, and our students when I am distanced from all of that in my district office.
Second, we learned in our survey that most school communications professionals are dissatisfied with how they spend their time. When given the statement, you spend the majority of your time focusing on what you consider to be the most important elements of your role. Less than half of school communicators agreed.
And to dig deeper into this dissatisfaction, we asked respondents to rank common tasks associated with their jobs, and big thanks to NSPRA for already doing the groundwork while building these task buckets, and asked them to rank first, which tasks took most of their time on a typical day, and second, which tasks are most important to be effective in their roles? And the answers here are ranked where the most important are at the top and the least important are the bottom. I wanna give everybody a moment to look at these two charts because I think it's really important.
In a perfect world, these two charts would be identical. Look at where building long term strategy is on the blue chart versus the pink chart. Look at where social media management is. What we see here is a difference between what takes priority and what actually ends up eating the time of school communicators.
I found social media so interesting, especially because it takes up so much time, but when school communicators are asked to rank what's actually important, it's almost near the bottom.
So I wanna have a quick question in the chat. Which task do you wish you could take off your plate entirely and why?
I'm gonna give you a couple minutes to Grant writing.
Calendar.
One thing that came up a lot in open responses was FOIA requests.
Not necessarily as something that's not important, but just something that takes up so much Menus, scheduling, calendars, attending school board meetings. Yes. And we all know how, you know, spicy those can be sometimes too. Public records requests, Part time in HR, social media management.
Melissa Hite: Explaining the reason for my existence. Have an article we can send you that will help with that a little bit.
Brittany Keil: Social media.
Website updates.
I'm definitely seeing some trends and ones that really remind me of the chart that I just posted.
So what do you think happens when you have to spend the majority of your time working on things that don't feel important? When you're isolated and you're pushed into reactive work? It's burnout. So we provided our respondents with a definition from the National Institute of Health that defined it burnout and had three key dimensions: overwhelming exhaustion, feeling of cynicisms, and a lack of accomplishment.
An alarming seventy seven percent of our respondents said that they were at least sometimes burned out.
And this comes with results. About forty percent of our survey said that they didn't plan to stay in school communications for the next five years. And some people were really happy to write in the comments that the reason for that is they were retiring and spending more time with their grandbabies, but far more felt that staying in the career, for them, at least, was uncertain.
So as one respondent put it, and I we hear a lot about teacher burnout, but I know many school communicators who are burned out too. The constant barrage of criticism, unkind comments, and the ever increasing demands all contribute to school communications professionals leaving the field.
All right, so I'm going to transition things to Melissa real quick. So I just left on a sad place, but Melissa has some resources and answers and some other really exciting findings from our data.
Melissa Hite: Yeah, so I get the fun part, which is talking about what you can do about all this.
Just to sum up where we are so far, school communicators generally do have a seat at the decision making table at least some of the time, but they don't have strong relationships with people throughout the school system who aren't their superintendent.
Add to that the heavy workload comps professionals face, apparent mismatch between time spent versus actual priorities, and the isolation of working on small or even solo teams, and you have an alarming rate of burnout, right? So what can we actually do to combat all of those challenges?
So one of the big things you can do to solidify your role is to make sure your communication strategies are tightly aligned with the district's leadership priorities. It's easy to feel like you're just kind of the spin doctors or the crisis managers at your district, but your work is so much more than that, as you know. So when you align your efforts with the district's strategic plan, your board goals, your key initiatives, you're not just ticking off boxes, you're actually helping drive the district forward.
According to the research, communicators who align their work with district goals are seen as essential partners in decision making.
Think of yourself as the bridge between a leadership's vision and your community. Your ability to translate that vision in a meaningful communication helps everyone from the school board all the way down to parents and guardians and caregivers understand the direction the district is heading. That strategic alignment shows that you're not just along for the ride, you're helping steer the ship where it needs to go.
So next up is quantifying your contributions. I know it can feel awkward sometimes to toot your own horn, but this isn't about bragging. This is about showing the value of your work. And I know some of you are already having to contend with that, as someone said in the chat, having to explain the value of your existence. Doing this is going to help you prove the value of your role.
I'm sure you've all been in situations where your efforts were behind the scenes, and it was easy for other people to overlook or not understand the impact. But here's the thing, data speaks. So track your successes, measure your impact, and regularly share those insights with your leadership team. By sharing updates through your communication plan or during board meetings, since you're spending a lot of time at board meetings a lot of times, you reinforce your importance. So your data isn't just numbers. It's proof of how your work supports the district's goals and builds trust within the community.
So the next thing you can do is work to build storytelling systems across your district. As you know, you can't possibly be everywhere in your district all at once, especially if you're one of that forty seven percent that works on a team of one. So that means you need people outside your official communications team to collaborate with you. But how do you get teachers, staff members, or even administrators to do that for you?
The answer is more research. So in twenty twenty two, we published a study called Who Speaks for Your Brand. And in that survey, we surveyed more than sixteen hundred school employees, from administrators staff to find out who was acting as brand ambassadors for their districts. Basically, we wanted to find out whether teachers and classified staff especially were familiar with their district brands and whether they were promoting that brand in any conscious conscious way.
So what we found out is we asked respondents to agree or disagree with the following statement. I believe it is my responsibility to improve the district's reputation when I speak with someone about the district. So seventy two percent of teachers said they strongly or somewhat agree that they feel responsible for improving the district's reputation. And while it's not on the slide, the numbers for Classified staff were very similar, just a couple of percentage points off.
Elsewhere in the survey, they also indicated that they believed it was important that they know about the district's branding and messaging priorities.
So the upshot is that teachers are already willing to act as brand ambassadors. They just don't always know how to do so, and they're often not trained to do so. So the problem here isn't convincing other members of your school community to help you tell your district story. They already want to do that.
The trick is just figuring out legible systems and putting those in place so that they can help you easily and effectively.
So a great example of this, is Saginaw ISD in Michigan. They give everyone in their district the power to contribute to their district story with a framework that they call collective authorship. Basically, any staff member that completes certain training modules on the district's brand in messaging is given permission to post to the district's website live feed, which sounds a little scary, but the posts are still moderated by their comms team, and they have to be approved to go by admin before they go up.
But Coty Kuschinsky, the comms director and chief of staff there will tell you they've only ever had to reject one post. So it hasn't been a problem. But this really empowers everyone across the district to share the positive things they see happening. Dr. Jeff Collier, the superintendent there, and their chief of staff, Coty Kuschinsky, that I just mentioned, they're great. They love talking about this. We actually had them on our podcast to talk about this, and you can listen to that if you want to scan that QR code, and Barrett can put the link to that podcast in the chat as well.
Oh, this slide was meant to say, how do you source positive stories, about the rest of your school district?
And how is that going for you?
Brittany Keil: Building relationships with teachers and principals, getting into the habit of asking staff to send information every week, developing relationships with teachers, principals, even students. Good stuff.
Oh, Bob. Bob says that they're in the process of doing the second initiative at their district.
Melissa Hite: Oh, amazing. Bob, I believe I talked to you at SchoolCEO conference about this. Exciting to see that come to fruition.
So the next thing that you can do, we'll go ahead and move on, is use AI to free up your time. As we've seen school communicators use of time doesn't really match up with their priorities. So how can you cut down the time you spend on less important tasks so you can focus on the really important stuff?
So a lot of you are actually already using AI. We asked some questions about this in our research. And when we asked how often school communicators use AI for work, nearly a third say they use it weekly.
But plenty of respondents also said that they rarely or never use it. So if you're not already using AI in your work at all, you might be missing a chance to save yourself some time.
So before anyone gets too nervous, I am not suggesting that you use AI for everything. I know there's a lot of apprehension around AI, especially in creative professions, and I get it. I mean, I work at a magazine. I also do not want to be replaced by AI.
We know that having a person behind your communications is crucial. But there's also so much that generative AI like ChatGPT and other platforms can do for you besides just write updates in social media posts. In fact, those creative projects that kind of need that human spark are one of the worst use cases for AI. But you might not know that there are actually really good use cases.
In a recent issue of SchoolCEO, we published a perspective from Rebecca Bultzma, who's a school communications director in Alberta, Canada, on how school communicators can use generative AI to their advantage. And she really changed the way I personally think about AI. So just on the slide are a couple of use cases for AI mentioned by Rebecca Bultsma, some of which I'm actually starting to use in my work at SchoolCEO. For example, if you didn't know, AI can be great for brainstorming.
I don't know about y'all, but at SchoolCEO, we always have the hardest time coming up with clever, catchy titles for content, for articles.
So I just started asking ChatGPT, give me ten clever titles for a magazine article about X topic. And even when we don't use the titles that it spits out, it gets our brains going in the right direction.
And if you're on a team of one, as so many of you are, having an extra brain to bounce ideas off of could be super valuable. So that's just a tiny taste of all of the great information Rebecca shares about AI. But since we have limited time, I'll move along. But if you're interested in ways that AI can save you time and enhance your work and not replace you, scan that QR code and you can read her entire perspective, it's really awesome.
So I wanted to ask the chat too, have you incorporated AI into your work at all? And if so, how have you done that?
Brittany Keil: I see some folks in the chat who use it for headline inspiration. I use AI in my work every day, same.
Bouncing ideas, proofreading, drafting message, social posts. I've been really impressed with the social post generation from Perplexity, especially.
Social media captions, slide decks. I used it for the first time to generate a rubric recently, and I don't know why I hadn't thought of that before.
Rubrics are tedious, rubrics are, you know, text heavy, and, you know, kind of specific, which is just the kind of stuff that AI loves.
Melissa Hite: Summarizing open ended survey responses too, we have done that with our research the last, you know, several research projects we've done.
Brittany Keil: I talked to a, comms director from Levensworth, Kansas, Jake Potter, And he said that AI actually changed the way that their district did poll surveys with their teachers. So where they used to do quarterly poll surveys, because it would take them maybe even a whole quarter just to parse through all of their hundreds of responses to build themes, they can now do that pretty instantaneously with AI. And so they were able to do poll surveys with teachers much more regularly so that they were able to get and respond to feedback just so much faster.
Melissa Hite: Claude, we have a staff member that uses Claude for everything.
Oh, evaluations.
I like that. I like that a lot.
Well, very cool. I'll be interested to keep our fingers on the pulse of this conversation because I'm sure that there are several of you using AI in ways that we haven't thought of. If you want to talk about AI, we're always excited to talk about AI and how it can help school communications.
The next task on our list is to advocate for role clarity and education. I'm sure many of you have been here, and I know we've talked about it in the chat some. You feel misunderstood, you feel overlooked, you feel like people don't understand what your role is.
And as we saw in the research, while most communicators do have access to district decision making, principals and other leaders and teachers often don't fully grasp what you do. And that lack of understanding can lead to feeling undervalued or even being left out of important conversations.
So how can you build more clarity around your goal? We've got three tips here. First, educate your colleagues. Take time to explain your role. Give a brief introduction and rundown during a staff meeting, create one pagers and hang them in the break room, or chat informally about what you do. The more people understand your work, the more likely they are to see you as a strategic partner and not just somebody who manages the website or somebody who takes photos at events, that kind of thing.
Again, as we mentioned before, you want to share your wins and impact story regularly. Don't wait for a crisis to show your value. Highlight your successes regularly, whether it's a small win or a major initiative that you've spearheaded to reinforce why your involvement matters.
And again, as many of you already talked about doing, build relationships with key stakeholders. Relationship building isn't just a nice addition to your work, it's the backbone of effective communication. So engaging with staff, students, and community members really gives you a pulse on what's happening in your district, And by connecting with principals, teachers, staff, you create a network of supporters who understand and advocate for your role. I'd also encourage y'all, if you aren't already familiar with a woman named Sandra Whelan, who is a Communications Director in New Jersey.
I know she has presented at NSPRA a few times, but she has a great presentation on kind of the psychology of communications that would be great to forward to administrators or watch if you are an administrator yourself to just kind of explain why communication is necessary and why it's not just prettifying flyers or taking photos at events. She's a great resource for this, and I just think she's amazing. So recommend talking to Saundra Whelan.
So one of the biggest challenges highlighted in the research is the disconnect between how you spend your time and what you believe is most important. It's easy to get caught up in the daily grind and lose sight of that bigger picture. So you want to prioritize your time to align with strategic goals.
So we've got three tips here too. You want to conduct a time audit. Spend a week tracking your activities. Are you spending too much time on tasks that aren't the most strategic? If so, it's time to make some adjustments. Bring this up to your superintendent or your other direct report if you feel you're not spending your time on the things that would be most impactful.
Set clear priorities and boundaries. According to the report, fifty four percent of communicators disagree that they focus on the most important parts of their role. So communicate what your priorities are and make sure that your time is aligned with them and that they're aligned with the priorities of your superintendent. If you all have different priorities, all need to talk about that and sort that out because it'll create a problem if you don't.
And then schedule some time for strategic work. You know, block out time on your calendar specifically for that strategic planning, content creation, or other high impact work, and protect that time fiercely as best you can. It's essential to making sure that you're doing the work that actually moves the needle.
And we also want to encourage you to advocate for support and professional development. Being on a team of one or working with minimal support can be exhausting. And even for those of you that have big teams, you've got a lot of work on your plate. A bigger team normally means a bigger district, and that means a lot of extra effort.
That can all be exhausting. The report noted that smaller districts and less experienced communicators often lack the resources they need to operate strategically, but there are ways that you can advocate for yourself no matter what the size of your district is.
Do you want to request additional resources? And again, this is kind of where some of that quantifying your contributions comes in. Use data from your workload to make the case for more help, whether it's staffing or better tools or more professional development, show how those investments can benefit the entire district.
You also want to engage with professional development as best you can. Getting involved with NSPRA or your local SPRA chapter can open doors to mentorship and resources and a supportive network that understands your challenges.
In that same vein, connect with a mentor or peer group. Burnout is real, especially when you feel isolated as people who work on small teams often do. So find that mentor or peer group where you can share experiences, swap advice, and find encouragement. That's so key to, maintaining a healthy outlook.
And along with that, you want to clearly communicate your needs and boundaries. Balancing daily tasks with strategic work is a constant struggle, especially when others don't fully understand what you do. And you're not just here for the press releases or emergencies, you're here to be woven into your district's fabric.
So you want to be as transparent as you can about your capacity. Don't be afraid to share what's on your plate. It's not about complaining, it's about advocating for a manageable workload, right?
You also want to set realistic response times. Boundaries aren't just about protecting your time, they're also about setting expectations that allow you to work more effectively. So it's okay if people aren't getting a text back or a Slack back or an email back within five minutes of them requesting something of you. Be sure to set response times that will work for you, that are realistic for you, and then communicate those to the people who are reaching out to you.
And finally, protect your own well-being. Our report shows, as we've already talked about, that burnout is a major issue in this field. So set those boundaries, take breaks, and don't feel guilty for stepping away when you need to recharge. There's that saying you can't pour from an empty cup and it's cliche, but it's really true. You have to fill your own cup before you can do your job effectively.
So that's about all we have for this, presentation. We do have a handout that we can send out in the follow-up that has tips both for superintendents who want to collaborate better with their comms directors, who I know we have plenty of those on this call, and also for comms directors who want to collaborate better with their superintendents. But I can let Brittany close this out.
Brittany Keil: Sure. So yeah, we like to say that we you know, hope this is the beginning of a conversation, even if it's the end of the webinar. And I wanted to let you all know about a couple of exciting upcoming things we have coming up, sorry. The first is that in our next issue of School CO, so I know you just got one, but you'll get another one at the end of January, we think. Yep.
We always know when we turn it in, it's the printer that we have to figure it out.
But we are coming out with a new research study called What Parents Want. That is specifically about what parents prefer when it comes to school communication. I'm really excited about this research. We had over fourteen hundred families fill out this survey from all across the country, and I'm excited to be able to hand that to school communicators and superintendents and other school leaders, and let you use that to drive your work. One interesting finding that I was thinking about as everybody was typing about how much social media takes of their time is that social media is actually one of the very lowest ways, lower than push notifications, lower than personal phone calls from a stranger, lower than anything for parents to find out new information about the district. And so while that doesn't mean that social media doesn't have its place, it's interesting that it's probably not the best channel for parent school communication in general.
But yes, we're going to send out this presentation with follow-up. We will also attach the handout.
So if you're a superintendent and want to share this with your communications folks, you can do that and vice versa.
And then we'll also include any other resources that we mentioned along the way.
Melissa Hite: I want to mention one more thing too. I know some people in the chat asked specifically about how the size of your district affects some of these questions. So we actually have, a special edition issue that you can specifically request to be mailed to you. That's a compilation of all of our research that we've done so far, including this research. Do you want to talk about Yeah.
Brittany Keil: That is a great point. Goodness.
We did a mini study, so to speak, called about school communication in America's largest districts. If you're in a really big district, and I know that big for one state isn't always the same as big for another, your school communications looks different than smaller districts. And so we dig into the research about how it looks different and why that matters for school leaders. So definitely Barrett can put a link in the chat about the research issue, but there is a very special, like, I guess invite only about large districts, but we do have some data about district size and how that impacts school communicators.
Interestingly, it didn't impact as much as we thought.
The challenges vary by district size.
But anyway, sign up for the research. I say it so much better in my words on a page than my words out of my mouth sometimes.
And I think that you'll find it very useful. But yeah, thank you so much for coming today. Stay tuned, we're gonna be launching our spring webinar series in the next couple of months, and we can't wait to have you back.
And yeah, have a great holiday break, go rest, burnout is real, and we are so thankful that you could join us today.
Melissa Hite: Thank you all so much.
