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When it comes to education, families have more choices than ever—and as a result, school funding is growing ever more competitive. As such, school leaders across the country are considering what parents want from their schools as they work to build districts that can not just survive, but thrive.
Parents and guardians don’t just have opinions about your district’s academic and extracurricular offerings; they also have preferences about school communication.
In this webinar, we explore what modern parents want from school communication—based on our groundbreaking survey of over 1,400 families.
Additional Resources
When it comes to school communication, what do parents want, anyway? We surveyed over 1,400 American parents to find out.
The Power of Parent-Teacher Communication for Student Success
Here are a few best practices for building an effective two-way communication strategy.
Designing a Communication Survey
Surveying your community is a great way to elevate your school communications. Here are some tips to get started.
Is your district stuck in a one-way conversation? Learn how a two-way communication strategy builds stronger family engagement.
We surveyed more than 1,600 school employees to find out who's acting as brand ambassadors for their districts—and why that matters.
Transcript
Brittany Keil: Alright, I'll go ahead and get started. So again…
Brittany Keil: You are in Breaking Through the Noise, What Parents Want from School Communication. Thank you so much for coming today. I'm excited to, dig into this. I think it'll be a lot of fun.
And I'm also excited to, you know, have these conversations before we enter the months of planning when it comes to school comms and school leadership, which is the summer.
Brittany Keil: So, real quick, my name is Brittany Keil, if we haven't met. I love research and education. I spent 10 years, working in school districts before I worked for SchoolCEO Magazine. 8 of those, I was a special education teacher.
You can see in my picture at the bottom.
Brittany Keil: you're right here. The, I started my career in Malaysia, so if you have a Malaysia connection, please let me know. I love to talk about Malaysia.
Brittany Keil: Here I am learning the Zappin dance with one of my very first students. The stars on my slide are definitely my two daughters, so I have a first grader who attends school in Edmunds Public Schools here in Washington State.
Brittany Keil: And then I have a one-year-old named Bea, and here she is in her Seahawks jersey,
Brittany Keil: It's not her fault, she was born in the year that they had their, you know, first Super Bowl win in forever, but oh no!
Brittany Keil: Man, am I not sharing my slides?
Brittany Keil: Oopsie, sorry, y'all. Thanks, Beth.
Brittany Keil: How's that?
Brittany Keil: Well, sorry about that. So, yes, this is me, and my wonderful daughters, Beatrice and Rosemary. I spent 10 years, as I mentioned, as a special education teacher, but since then, I've been working for SchoolCEO, doing, research and writing for SchoolCEO Magazine. I hope you're familiar with our magazine.
Brittany Keil: You should be getting your newest edition, and it's absolutely beautiful. Sorry, I'm gonna try to get past my little blur thing.
Brittany Keil: It should be coming in the mail this week.
Brittany Keil: Okay, moving along, just want to make sure the chat is good. Everyone can see my slides now, correct?
Brittany Keil: So, if you're not familiar with SchoolCO Magazine, we are the school marketing magazine. We've been in the biz for nearly 8 years now, which feels absolutely insane to me, but it is absolutely a wonderful, you know.
Brittany Keil: work of the heart. We have a totally independent writing and editorial team full of researchers and writers and a very, very talented illustrator. We do all of this work ourselves, it's all produced in-house, and then we partner with a print, shop. All of our research is original, all of our stories start with, interviews and conversations with amazing school leaders and communicators just like you.
Brittany Keil: So, if you have an idea you think could be, you know, useful for a SchoolCEO, or should be shown across the country, please feel free to reach out. I'd love to have a conversation.
Brittany Keil: We also have the SchoolCO Spark newsletter, so you can subscribe to it using this QR code. This newsletter is also written by our team.
Brittany Keil: I always like to joke that this is probably the way to stay up to date with what we're thinking about right now. We attend a lot of conferences, we have a lot of conversations with school leaders such as yourself, and the newsletter is where we kind of pilot those ideas out.
Brittany Keil: It's always written by somebody on our team. We send it twice a month at the most, sometimes for busy months like May, we actually take a little step back, so feel free to subscribe, we'd love to see you there.
Brittany Keil: This, research in particular, came out in, Winter 2025, which was, which is on our calendar, January, February of the year, so about a year ago, and was about a study we conducted in 48,
Brittany Keil: all states and all major geographic regions. We had 1,400 responses from families of students ages 4 to 18. I'm excited right now because we're actually planning out a partner study to this to learn about what parents are thinking about as they transition between elementary school to middle school.
Brittany Keil: Middle school to high school, and even, as they choose kindergartners. So stay tuned, that should be coming out later this year. This study was the first time we partnered explicitly with parents. Previously, school CEO had done research on teachers, school administrators, and,
Brittany Keil: you know, school leadership and well, as well, but this was the first time we actually got to talk to teachers.
Brittany Keil: I mean, excuse me, parents.
Brittany Keil: So, for discussion, how many businesses do you think have your phone number?
Brittany Keil: Feel free just to shoot a number.
Brittany Keil: 100. Not as many as have my email address, so true, Kevin.
Brittany Keil: Too many?
Brittany Keil: I recently started getting, phone updates for, my water bill, which is new. I don't exactly know why or how I signed up for that, but yeah. So, so many people. And as we talk through today, we're really going to be thinking about this clutter, and the different spaces of our lives, the communication spaces especially.
Text messages used to be pretty special. I used to only get texts from my friends
Brittany Keil: family, now it is just as cluttered as my inbox, and my inbox is, something I don't even like to think about. I feel bad all the time, that if somebody tries to email me something, and it gets, you know.
Brittany Keil: flagged, not just as spam, but also as a promotion, then I might not see it. I just saw yesterday my daughter got invited to a birthday party, but it got, flagged as a promotion, so we almost missed Speech Tallulah's birthday.
Brittany Keil: So the truth about us is that we never stop communicating. So in the US, we send approximately 6 billion text messages a day.
Brittany Keil: And globally, the average person receives 121 emails per day, which I know people who look at that and say, like, I wish I received only 121 emails per day. And in the US, 6,000 posts are made on X every single second.
Brittany Keil: And these are only 3 of the many ways we communicate. A lot of folks use Facebook, they use Messenger, they use WhatsApp. There are a multitude of, you know, opportunities to communicate, and all of these can be quite overwhelming.
Brittany Keil: Think about all of the messages you receive in the day-to-day. Your package was delivered, your flight was delayed, your reward points are expiring, half off only today, promotions, promotions, winter weather, alert in your area. The messaging never really stops.
Brittany Keil: And as you can imagine, this is overwhelming. This is our life. I don't have to explain this to you. This is especially overwhelming if you are a parent.
Brittany Keil: In communications, we often use the phrase that we have to break through the noise. And what we mean by that is that we are not just trying to communicate, we are trying to communicate in a space where families, especially, are absolutely saturated with communication.
Brittany Keil: A really good exercise I advise school districts to do, and we're going to be talking about this later in the presentation as well, is to just do an audit of what all communications your families receive from the school district and anyone associated. That means athletic booster clubs, that means
Brittany Keil: teachers, that means volunteer clubs, that means everything. You would be surprised, unfortunately, in a bad way, at just how much communication, and many of it un… not scaffolded in a way that makes sense.
Brittany Keil: So, today we're going to be talking through the data of what families say they want, and then part two of what you can do with that information.
Brittany Keil: So first, I've already kind of gone over this, so the, survey closed in 2024. We had 1,400 responses from families ages 4 to 18.
Brittany Keil: What we wanted to know in the study was three main things. First, we wanted to know through which communication channels do families prefer to receive important information.
Brittany Keil: Second, we wanted to understand which school or district employees do families most trust to relay important information, and then third, we wanted to know how communication influences family satisfaction with and trust with their school districts.
Brittany Keil: This last point, number 3, is especially important, because every school district I know is working towards, increasing the trust that they have with their families and broader community. Trust is power in today's, you know, very suspicious environment. People don't trust institutions, and so gaining and building that trust is, you know, one of the most important things a school district can work toward.
Brittany Keil: So first, we asked our families, through which avenue do you most often learn essential but non-emergency school-related information for the first time? I want to put two caveats here. First, we're not asking them yet how they prefer information, we're asking them how they receive it. We're also asking them to recall.
Brittany Keil: So, while this may not match statistically with what they actually receive on their phones or in their inboxes, this is what they remember.
Brittany Keil: So you can see that the majority of families, about a third, receive information from the district or school website for the first time.
Brittany Keil: And then, followed by email or newsletter, the district app, and then all the way at the bottom, only 3% say they learn of news for the first time from district or school social media.
Brittany Keil: There's a lot of really interesting implications of this graph if you take a look. And I think that you should definitely think about this as you explore or think about your own practices as well.
Brittany Keil: So, something that stands out to me is that while the school or district website is the most popular, there is a popular option, there is a lot of range about how families prefer to receive information. It's not one of those graphs where you've got 70% of, you know, parents saying one thing.
Brittany Keil: A good chunk prefer email or newsletter, a good chunk prefer the app. You know, 10% or just over 10% say text messages or automatic calls.
Brittany Keil: And, you know, interestingly, like, 10% say a personal call for a school staff member, which is interesting. I don't think I've actually ever been communicated in that way.
Brittany Keil: Then we asked families how they actually prefer to receive essential but non-emergency school-related information. And I will say this is, you know, important information that's not an emergency, so we're not talking about something that would be, you know, designated to an alert.
Brittany Keil: The graph shifts just a little bit here. So most families prefer to receive things from the school or district website, followed by text messages, emails, or newsletters, the district app, and then all the way down again at the bottom is district or school social media.
Brittany Keil: Notice how important the website is for families to receive, new information. I feel like something that I hear a lot of districts say, and something that we actually talk about in our magazine, is about how your homepage is your first impression. But is it updated to the level that it is also the first place families go to receive new information? That is a little bit trickier.
Brittany Keil: Families prefer your school website over any other communication channel, which is good for you, in that that's a channel that you have.
Brittany Keil: control over. If our survey had found that they preferred, you know, private Facebook groups, that would have been a lot harder of a lift, but school websites are something that the school district can own, it can be a single source of truth that they are able to, you know, train families to go to, and thankfully, the data backs up that this is how families like to be communicated to.
Brittany Keil: So, does that mean that no other communication channels matter?
Brittany Keil: Absolutely not. So, one interesting finding of this study was that more than half of families use their district apps regularly. This is something that was exciting to me. Before I had a kid in schools.
Brittany Keil: I was unsure about how families, actually used apps. As a teacher, it was not something that I relied on heavily for communication. My district did not have two-way through with an app. We, we used a different… lots of different tools for that.
Brittany Keil: But it's something that is definitely gaining steam, and something that families are familiar with. As you can see, only 12% of families say that they're unaware if their district has an app or not, which I think is good news, especially to the school communicators.
Brittany Keil: But, once families go to the app, what are they looking for? And this was one of those questions where we asked them to choose more than one, because we know that families aren't looking for just one thing when they're looking for communication from the district. By and large, they're looking for communication about upcoming school events.
Brittany Keil: information about curriculum and what their child is learning, grades, updates from the classroom, and then all the way at the bottom, is athletics and extracurriculars. I want to do another study about how families like to learn about, information from athletics and extracurriculars, because I feel like that's such a divisive topic in school communication. I think that that really, varies by persona. I think that families who are in the spheres of athletics and extracurriculars
Brittany Keil: want to hear quite a lot, and those who aren't probably don't care. I will say, I have a first grader. I know almost nothing about the high school athletics at my, at my school level, but I'm curious.
Brittany Keil: you know, what other dis… or families in my district think. And yes, Jody, we will be sending the slides out afterward, and please, go manage your chaos, and good luck.
Brittany Keil: So when we asked our families, how do you prefer to see… receive, essential but non-emergency school district information, the school or district website was most popular, as we, as we mentioned earlier.
Brittany Keil: District apps aren't just one of the top three ways that parents want to learn information, they're also the ways that parents prefer to receive the communication. So if you have an app, this is fantastic. That means that you already have a very powerful tool for engaging for families. If you don't have an app, this is something that you should look into.
Brittany Keil: I think my biggest takeaway from this graph is that district or social media is one of the lowest, ranked ways families want to receive communication.
Brittany Keil: And honestly, I think this is a good thing.
Brittany Keil: So, in 2024, our team partnered with the National School Public Relations Association, NSPRA, we love them, I hope to see y'all, if you're a school communicator or superintendent at NCE this summer, to research about, to conduct research about school communicators, including how they spend their time.
Brittany Keil: And that study, and we found that while social media management was one of the most time-consuming tasks.
Brittany Keil: For school communicators, it was one that they believed was least important.
Brittany Keil: This is really interesting when you consider this chart back here. Families don't want to hear, new or essential information from your school district on social media. Communicators find it time-consuming and not very strategic. So what does that mean for how your district should handle your district's social media?
Brittany Keil: I don't think that most schools should wholly abandon social media. I do think it's a powerful tool for engaging with a broader community, but the data has spoken. It is not the way that families want to be communicated with.
Brittany Keil: And also, maybe your comms team shouldn't spend quite so much time on it, and I know a lot of communicators who would really view that as a good thing.
Brittany Keil: So then we turned our study to the who, and this was a really interesting topic for me, because there's been a lot of data, about which person, in a school district families trust the most. And historically speaking, that has always been the principals. But we wanted to know communication in particular. Who from your school district do you most trust to communicate valuable information?
Brittany Keil: And by and large, and this is 60% of families, prefer to hear from the child's teacher. 24% say the child's principal, the district's communication director, and then the superintendent down at 4%.
Brittany Keil: Teachers are your key communicators, and there are not, honestly, a lot of opportunities to help build them into the brand representative that they need to be, but I think this is the most interesting and crucial challenge that is facing a lot of school communicators, especially as you plan your summer learning for teachers and your summer professional development.
Brittany Keil: If 60% of, families most trust your child's teacher, how can you rope in the teacher to help be a strategic partner when it comes to communication?
Brittany Keil: Teachers are a part of your communication strategy, whether you like it or not.
Brittany Keil: So we wanted to know, finally, how does communication influence families' trust and satisfaction with their districts? And this, as I mentioned at the beginning, is a very, very important question.
Brittany Keil: Why? School districts need trust, they need satisfaction, they need the positive press that goes into, you know, helping bolster their relationship with their community. But does communication actually improve it?
Brittany Keil: And the answer is yes. So, to get there, we had to kind of look at two different things. First, we asked families, do you perceive info or communication from your child's district to be mostly positive, negative, or a mix of both?
Brittany Keil: As you can see, by and large, most families view, communication to be mostly positive, which I think is a good thing, especially when it comes to building positive associations. Only 9% of families viewed, communication to be mostly negative, and about 20% said that it would be a mix of both.
Brittany Keil: So, back to my original question. How does communication influence families' trust and satisfaction with the districts? You can probably see where we're going with this.
Brittany Keil: So, what we found, by looking at a couple of crosstabs and a couple of, different questions, was that when parents receive frequent communication from the district, and when that communication is both positive and relevant to them and their child, they are more likely to be satisfied with their school districts as a whole.
Brittany Keil: I'm going to say that again. So, when families receive frequent communication from the district that is positive and relevant to them and their child, they are more likely to be satisfied with the school district. And parents who were satisfied with their child's school district were also more likely to trust their child's school district.
Brittany Keil: I think this is really critical, because this alone lays out the strong rationale for why you should invest in school communications.
Brittany Keil: School communications has the power to move the barometer of trust, to move the barometer of satisfaction. And this, also tells you the how. You need, communication that is positive, relevant, and.
Brittany Keil: Frequent. And I think that there's an interesting thing here, too, that we often worry that we're over-communicating with families. But, thankfully, in this study, we didn't actually found that. We found that a lot of families actually like to receive frequent communication.
Brittany Keil: So, what do you want to avoid? Our takeaways were three things. First, only sending neutral or negative communication.
Brittany Keil: Second, sending generic communication that was to all families and not personalized in any way.
Brittany Keil: And then third, communicating infrequently, it totally destroys parent satisfaction. I don't know a lot of school districts that, do try to, rein back their communication so drastically that they're only communicating infrequently, but if that is you, I recommend you take another look at that practice.
Brittany Keil: So, let's review. And these are a couple sticky notes of things that I'd like you to take away.
Brittany Keil: First, families prefer your school website over any other communications channel.
Brittany Keil: Second, families who are pleased with their district's comms are more likely to trust and be satisfied with their schools. If you're a comms director, this is something you should definitely take to your superintendent. This is the rationale for your work, the why for what you do.
Brittany Keil: Third, parents most trust teachers who communicate valuable information.
Brittany Keil: Fourth, over half of parents indicated that they prefer to receive important but non-urgent updates through apps, websites, or newsletters, not texts, which is interesting, especially when you think about, you know, how we traditionally have marketed texts as sort of a quick access to families.
Brittany Keil: Fifth, more than half of parents use their district app regularly. And then sixth, social media is one of parents' least favorite way to learn new information. I think that there's a lot of takeaways here. I'd love you to look at this slide just for a second and think about which of these is your favorite.
Brittany Keil: So, for discussion, based on this data, what is one takeaway so far?
Brittany Keil: Feel free to jot to yourself, feel free to put in the chat, either way. For me, when I got this data back, I was most excited. Yeah, happy comms make happy parents, absolutely, Kevin.
Brittany Keil: I was most excited to see, that teachers were such a vital role for trust. I know that teachers love to be a part of a communication strategy, they often just don't know, you know, how to align to the brand, but that is something that
Brittany Keil: It's definitely worth the lift. We're spending the most time on the least favorite way, yes, Allie, I understand that.
Brittany Keil: Lots of good chatter. Yes, negative calms make for negative parents.
Brittany Keil: And then how important websites are to communicate, to convey communication, absolutely.
Brittany Keil: So, from here, we're going to take the data, and we're going to position it into some next steps. My favorite thing about School CO Research is that we actually, like to take the research, digest it, and then come away with talking points.
Brittany Keil: We say this is because school leaders and school communicators are often very busy, and we love to give you next steps that you're able to take out of the box.
Brittany Keil: So, part two, what can you do?
Brittany Keil: First, I recommend that everyone conduct an audit of your communications channels. I mentioned this a little bit earlier in the slide. You would absolutely be, I think amazed at what kind of communications you are receiving.
Brittany Keil: I have a personal story about this. So, when I was a teacher, I was very thoughtful about communications, especially later on in my career. I was very proud of my newsletter, it was engaging, I had great open rates, I was super-duper proud.
Brittany Keil: So, one day, I get a single response, to a survey, from a parent about communication, like, I just want to know how I'm doing, and the response was way too much communication. I was so initially offended. I was like, I send one monthly newsletter, that's too much? Like, what do you want from me?
Brittany Keil: Never to communicate with you about your child, like, I think this is, you know… Anyway, I took it all wrong. So, I reached out to the parent to understand more, and the parent was like, well, I love the newsletter, what I don't like is the daily grade email.
Brittany Keil: I was like, what daily grade email?
Brittany Keil: So, I worked with this parent, I looked on her phone, and I realized that she had signed up for daily alerts, or sorry, not even daily alerts, alerts every single time a grade was entered into the gradebook for my class.
Brittany Keil: She was absolutely inundated. First of all, thinking that I was sending these messages that were important, and second, I was not even aware that she was receiving this communication. Our whole, communication relationship changed after that. I signed her up for weekly grade alerts, she still wanted to stay in the loop, but not to the level, that she was.
I'm one of… I was one of those teachers that had, like, 3 grades every single class period, too.
Brittany Keil: Lots of data, so I can only imagine how overwhelmed she felt.
Brittany Keil: I find this too when I talk to communicators, and they get feedback in their surveys from things like booster clubs, PTAs. Families are receiving a lot of communication from tertiary, school district-related groups that aren't even necessarily a part of what we do.
Brittany Keil: So, questions you can ask yourself as you create, do this audit. First, does your website offer a great user experience? Is it accurate and up-to-date?
Brittany Keil: I'd also think that you should really consider ADA compliance, of course, when you look at this. A great website experience is one that is accessible. And although the Title II deadline was moved to next year, your families with disabilities are still there, and having a good website experience for them is a part of great design.
Brittany Keil: Second, do you use a district app that allows families to access information about events, curriculum, and updates all in one place? If half of families use apps, or use your district app, is the app updated? Is it, you know, easy to access?
Brittany Keil: And then third, given that families indicate preferences, are you over-relying on social media or text?
Brittany Keil: Social media is one that I think is, sort of a siren call for a lot of districts. Sometimes they have practices on social media that go back, you know, a decade or more that they are still keeping up.
Brittany Keil: Sometimes, it can be confusing when every time you post a snow day, you get the most engagement on your social media, but I think it's really important to step back and think about what the strategy is there when communicating with families.
Brittany Keil: So, there were some open response answers that I felt really, played to some of these points, and these are from parents. I want better information on the school website that's relevant, up-to-date, and easier to navigate.
Brittany Keil: I wish they had an updated app that posted content regularly. And then, this is one of my favorite quotes, anything major should be a text, the rest can be a newsletter or something else.
Brittany Keil: My school district in general, I feel like, does a really good job with communication. Shout out to all of the wonderful communicators I work with. Recently I started getting texts, though, about our One School, One Book policy, which was surprising.
Brittany Keil: so every single day, I get a text with a new recording, and so I'm like, well, can't wait for this month to be over so that I can stop receiving those every day.
Brittany Keil: So, two, align communications at all level, and I will say this is easier said than done.
Brittany Keil: So you want to think about what is being communicated, who, when, and where. This is a, an exercise that I think communicators are best to lead. You can do this with the cabinet, with the superintendent, even with your… any communicating groups.
Brittany Keil: at the building level, such as principals, but you want to think about what is being communicated, how, and where, and have standard practice for that. I know a lot of school districts use a tier system, so things that are a Tier 1, or something that's an alert, that's something that has to go out immediately, Tier 2, etc. So, thinking about how communication goes out before it is time to send it.
Brittany Keil: And this is something that you need buy-in on. I also believe the communications department has the ability and the say to make standard practice.
Brittany Keil: This is another open response that I believe speaks to this idea. I wish the district would streamline communication, focusing on consistency and clarity. Engaging parents with through multiple channels like email, text, and an app can ensure important messages aren't missed and everyone stays informed.
Brittany Keil: As I mentioned, this is easier said than done. It's difficult not only to know what is being communicated out, but also to get a handle so that that communication is strategic. But you are, as communicators, are in the best seat to make that happen.
Brittany Keil: Here's another open response. One change I'd wish is for more proactive and consistent updates about events, deadlines, and curriculum changes, ideally in a centralized, easy-to-access platform. This would make it easier for parents to stay informed without having to search through multiple emails or different portals.
Brittany Keil: We often think of this as the efficiency versus effectiveness debate. It's efficient for us to send emails or text.
Brittany Keil: But it's not necessarily effective. This is a lovely little animation from our wonderful illustrator Sol, but you can imagine as families' texts and emails fill up, it's so much easier to navigate to an app where things are static, consistent, and easy to navigate.
Brittany Keil: So third, you need to get to know your family's unique preferences.
Brittany Keil: So we have an entire article, feel free to follow this QR code if you'd like to learn more, about designing a communications survey. I actually did this with a district in Kansas, we worked in tandem together, designing, and analyzing the survey. It was a wonderful experience, and I recommend everyone do it as well.
Brittany Keil: When planning a communication survey, there's lots of good questions that you should consider. First, why are you conducting the survey? What do you want to learn? Who's the survey for?
Are you talking about internal communications with parents, or sorry, with teachers, external communication with parents, or even external communication with family members, or sorry, community members and other stakeholders?
Brittany Keil: What do you need to ask? How will you distribute the survey effectively? And I will say the beginning of the school year is a good time to get a temperature check on this if you're building your practices. And then, when should you conduct the survey?
Brittany Keil: So, a couple of quick tips. Always test your survey before distributing it widely. It's amazing how something that works on one type of device works not at all on another.
Brittany Keil: And then if you aren't using lever… if you aren't leveraging tools like AI to lighten the node of data analysis, like, you've really got to start. Notebook LM, Claude, there's lots of incredible tools. I'm happy to, serve as a part… thought partner for that if you'd like to learn more.
Brittany Keil: But AI makes data analysis so much easier, and I say this as somebody who does a lot of it.
Brittany Keil: And then fourth, and this is probably my most, favorite finding from this study, was to involve your teachers in your communication strategy.
Brittany Keil: So a couple of years ago, we surveyed teachers, and we asked them to disagree or agree with the following statement. It is my responsibility to improve the district's reputation when I speak with someone about the district.
Brittany Keil: As you can see, by and large, they either agree or somewhat agree. Teachers already view themselves as important brand ambassadors for your district. They think of this as part of their plate, not something additional put on their plate.
Brittany Keil: And so, what can you do, knowing this, knowing both that families trust your teachers, and that teachers view this as part of their jobs, to help them be better communicators for their districts?
Brittany Keil: We also asked teachers in the same study, on average, how often have you received training on the district's brand and messaging priorities? And as you can see, 40% of them said less than once a year, which is simply not enough to be an effective brand ambassador. 21% of them said that they had never received training at any time.
Brittany Keil: I know right now in school districts, you are finalizing PD schedules for the summer teachers. Make sure communications has a say.
Brittany Keil: Teachers are your trusted speakers, you are the people in the room who can get them on brand. Make sure that that collaboration works, and that there's chances to check in throughout the school year.
Brittany Keil: There's a couple of open responses I think speak very strongly to this. First, I hope my child's teacher can send me more messages. I hope teachers can increase the frequency of communication, I hope the teacher can call me more and communicate with me, and I hope the school and teachers can cooperate more closely so the parents will feel more at ease.
Brittany Keil: These are families asking for more communication, specifically from teachers. How can you best enable your teachers to fill those shoes, and to make sure that the families are receiving what they want and they need in this relationship of trust?
Brittany Keil: So, let's review. First, conduct an audit of your communications channels, and I didn't put this in the slides, but I will say that Inspire does top-notch communication audits. I know there's probably a couple districts on this call who have experienced this before. They're absolutely thorough, wonderful, highly recommend partnering with them.
Brittany Keil: Second, align your communications at all levels. This requires a lot of people in the room, at least initially, as you figure out the strategy, but I promise it does get easier.
Brittany Keil: Third, you want to get to know your family's unique preferences, hopefully through conducting a communication survey. And then four, you want to involve teachers in your communication strategy.
Brittany Keil: So, thank you, it was a pleasure to have you this morning. I hope you all have a wonderful day as we ease, hopefully, into the summer here in the Pacific Northwest. We've still got a lot of weeks left, but I know a lot of you are heading into it, so please enjoy.
Brittany Keil: If you are interested in learning more about these ideas, interested in engaging with us more, we are having, our advanced registration for SchoolCEO Conference right now. I will say, I think that we are going to have the earliest sellout date that we've ever had.
Brittany Keil: Very exciting, so please check it out. We'll be in Dallas September 28th through 29th. We're planning out, our keynotes and our sessions right now, so if there's something you'd like to see, please let me know.
Brittany Keil: Other than that, thank you for coming, it was great to have you, and I, you know, I look forward to working together more in the future.
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