Don’t forget to share your facilities updates

The students and teachers have gone away for the summer, but the schools are not quiet. The sounds of summer work fill the buildings and grounds. Summer facilities work is the reason school buildings last for decades and change to meet the new demands of modern education. Some of the work is routine maintenance and some is exciting new construction, but all of it is important to tell your community about.

Bond construction

When you pass a bond measure, you don’t start building right away. It takes time to plan the work and make the site ready.  In the case of new construction, the weather and plans often converge to make summer the time to cut ribbons and turn dirt. And in the case of renovations, the absence of kids is an opportunity to dig in and get the work done.

Voters need to know right away when the work has begun, and they need to know the major milestones as construction progresses. Some people are tuned in during the summer so immediate updates are necessary. But others will be in a better frame of mind in the fall to learn about all the summer building activity.

Perhaps the best thing about new construction is there is always something to show, not just tell. Photo and video opportunities abound every day on a construction site — it is always visually interesting when you build something. Movement makes for good video. Colors, shapes and faces make great photos. And, it is not always major milestones that make the most interesting posts and updates. Showing video of the drywall arriving by truck with narration can be just as exciting as showing the finished product.

Each new job site should have its own presence on the web, where photos and text are consistently and regularly updated throughout the summer. Consider using social media and the web to get the word out. Twitter is great for showing a few photos or a short video with a link to more information on your website.

Webcams are low-cost and can provide interesting footage. Time-lapse photography and drones can make for very interesting video of work in progress. Check with your contractor before recording any video or setting up any webcams. Everyone on the work site needs to be in the loop if you are recording. Nobody wants to be surprised that cameras were rolling if an accident or safety violation is caught on video.

Not everyone wants their information digitally. Consider an end-of-summer newsletter or report to be mailed to district patrons.

With renovation, it is always helpful to let the public know how the people in the school are adapting to the work that needs to be done. Did the school office move to an alternate location for the summer? Is the schedule affected in the fall? Will the entire project be finished by the first day of school, or will construction continue? All of these considerations put a human face on the bond work and help remind voters why they supported the measure in the first place.

Routine and deferred maintenance

While perhaps not as exciting as new construction or renovation, routine or deferred maintenance can be just as important for schools. Landscaping, roof and parking lot replacements, gym floors and plumbing upgrades are the reason school buildings last through the ages, protecting the investment your community has made over generations. These projects do not need to be part of a bond measure to be important. Regular spending on maintenance is often reduced in tough times, and the public needs to know why it matters.

Maintenance is generally not as photogenic as new construction. So, the communications team has  to be a little creative in developing the visual potential of what might normally be considered rather mundane operations. Photos of a new roof will not be appealing, unless they’re compared to close-ups of the old roof coming apart. New pavement is just new pavement, unless it is shown next to photos of the old crumbling parking lot and hazardous sidewalks. The old pipes may have looked fine, so show the brown water coming out of the drinking fountain next to the shiny new ones.

In many cases, the best photos and video of routine maintenance are those that show people working. Taxpayers not only enjoy seeing the buildings being maintained, but also people working on jobs that will benefit generations of students to come.

Timing is everything

The time to take photos and interview project managers is when the work is going on. And, many updates should be in real time as well. People do tune in during those sweltering summer days.

However, summer is not the best time to reach everyone with updates. Many people take summer vacations or break up their normal routines in the summer. And, some community groups skip a few meetings in the summer due to spotty attendance.

So, use the summer months to get ready for fall, when people are back in their normal routine, and community groups are back on their normal meeting schedules. When those things happen in the fall, you should have a summer’s worth of photo, video and project reports to share.

Take the updates on the road

A highly effective communications technique is to go where people are already meeting to share your summer work updates. Service clubs and business leaders are usually eager to have someone from the district come to their meetings to provide brief presentations. Check with each group to get on their calendar and find out how much time you will have to present. If they leave it to you, generally 10 minutes of slides or speaking with five minutes for questions is a good starting point.

Since you are already going to gather all of your visuals and updates for the various groups, don’t forget your school board. Give a presentation to your board in August or September.

It can be rather extensive for board members, but tell them that you would like to be invited to give a shorter presentation to any community groups they have connections with.

Facilities matter to your community

Whether or not you recently passed a bond measure, there is bound to be an abundance of facilities work going on in your district this summer. Your community needs to know what is happening and why it is important. By sharing updates about work and the benefits to students, you will help your community feel more connected and more supportive of your stewardship of the investment they have in your buildings and grounds.

SEO in 2019: Basics and beyond

Since the beginning of the internet, there have been tricks and tips to get your website highest on organic search pages. Much like the old-school phone books, in which businesses learned they could boos their visibility by adding a few extra As to the front of their name, there are ways to leapfrog your website’s accessibility today by using search engine optimization (SEO).

Without SEO, you can have the best website in the world, but no matter how long someone searches for it, with many combinations of keywords, he or she may never find it.

Fortunately, most web design packages now make the SEO part of your website readily accessible, so you no longer need a computer science degree for your site to compete. But this means you also don’t have the excuse to outsource it. Time to clean up those skills.

The basics

Since Google is responsible for more than 65%  of the search engine market share in the U.S. and over 92% worldwide, let’s mostly talk about SEO for Google (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/51335).

Google is always tweaking how it ranks pages, but its main goals are to rank high pages that:

• contain high-quality, relevant information;
• have relevance to the search topic;
• are of “high quality,” determined by the number and pedigree of the sites that link to your page and your site.

Google is also looking to see:

• how long people stay on your site after they click;
• how much unique content you have.

Keywords, keywords, keywords

Keywords are the core of SEO. Keywords are the terms people search for when going to a search engine. “Punxsutawney School District” is an example of a keyword. “Punxsutawney” also is a keyword.

But what you really want to know is will your school district show up for the keywords “best school district in western PA?” And that is where SEO comes in. It’s also where latent semantic indexing (LSI) keywords come in. LSI keywords are conceptually related terms that search engines use to understand content on a page.

Once upon a time, you could write “best school district in western PA” on every page of your website, easily ensuring Google would rank you high for those keywords. Now Google expects to see additional LSI keywords appearing on your page that relate to being the best school district — keywords like “top-ranked colleges,” “test scores,” “small class size” and “parent involvement.” In other words, the old adage about content is true.

Content is king

This phrase has tumbled around social media for years, but now it’s more relevant than ever. While Google used to search your website for keywords and rank your site high if the keyword in your headline showed up in your article and in your HTML link, the search engine is a lot smarter now. Today, in-depth content ranks best. That ideally means content that is at least 2,000 words, informational and authoritative, and contains LSI keywords.

The dirt on backlinks

“Backlinks take place across the internet when one website mentions another website and links to it,” according to www.seoclarity.net (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/85681). “Also referred to as ‘incoming links,’ backlinks make their connection through external websites. These links from outside domains point to pages on your own domain. Whenever backlinks occur, it is like receiving a vote for a webpage. The more votes you get from authoritative sites creates a positive effect on a site’s ranking and search visibility.”

Backlinks are a strong signal to search engines that your site is an authority and should be ranked high. But they’re also fading in usage, especially in comparison with the links and brand recognition created via social media hashtags and mentions.

Social media

Search engines are using social media to judge the quality of your site but maybe not how you think. It’s not how many times you share something from your website on Facebook or Twitter that affects Google’s ranking.

That would be too easy, right? The more times you can get people to click on the link that heads back to your site, the greater your search engine ranking will be. In other words, it’s still all about providing good content (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/92466).

One more thing you should know

In 2018, Google started the process of “migrating sites to a mobile-first index,” according to www.searchengineland.com (http://links.ohioschoolboards.org/73434). The mobile version of your site is now the primary one Google is using to rank your site. This means if you’ve procrastinated on making a mobile version of your website, that time is past. Mobile is the way of the present and the future.

SEO can make or break your site. But with good content and engagement and an SEO strategy that takes LSI keywords into account, you can come out on top.

Contributed by Megan J. Wilson, Los Angeles-based freelance writer and communications consultant

Summer public relations planning for the new school year

By the time school ends, most school public relations (PR) staff members are ready to let out a huge sigh and kick back for the summer. While it’s good — actually critical — to take a breather, rest and regroup, don’t lose the opportunity to plan for next year.

Summer is a prime time for looking ahead and developing strategies and timelines to accomplish important goals. The pace is slower, and you are more likely to have uninterrupted time to really think through your communication objectives.

Summer provides an opportunity to connect with communicators in neighboring districts about their communication plans and strategies that worked well for them. Spend a few hours online researching nearby districts to see how they approach communications with their staff, parents and community. Meet with your superintendent and other district leaders to better understand your district’s communications challenges and the best way to address them.

Most of all, savor the luxury of a more relaxed pace and, hopefully, a plate that isn’t as full as it is during the hectic school months. The more planning and housekeeping you are able to do during the summer, the less harried you will be when school starts. It will be a pleasure to start the new year organized and ready to go.

Following is a checklist of things to address during the summer:

• Review and update your website. Is it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act? If not, this should be a priority. Update your staff lists, school board members and other contacts. Add information about any new programs or district initiatives. Refresh photos. Add calendar dates, including parent conferences, concerts and plays and nonschool days. Check links and make sure they are operational. Make it as easy as possible for parents to access information and navigate the various webpages.
• Update publications. Summer is the perfect time to review and update your district publications, such as the volunteer handbook or student-parent handbook. Post the updated documents to your website by early August so they are ready when parents and students start accessing the website for back-to-school information. If there are any critical changes, post a notice on the school website outlining the changes and encouraging patrons to review the updated publications.
• Analyze your communications tools. Review the analytics from your various communication tools and assess their effectiveness. Determine whether you are reaching the right audiences. Are parents and others engaging with your Facebook posts? Are your voice and text notifications being heard or read? Who is visiting your website, and what kinds of devices are they using to do that?
• Plan your social media strategy. Social media is a wonderful tool for telling your school stories in your own words and photos. But schools often leave it up to parent groups to develop Facebook pages. Sometimes they even follow the lead of supportive students or parents who establish unofficial school accounts. Treat Facebook as a legitimate communication tool that receives the same branding and review as your other tools. Facebook is especially effective at reaching parents and is a great way to share positive stories and photos about what students are doing and accomplishing in school. Map out an editorial calendar listing dates for different events and topics that you want to include in posts during the upcoming year.
• Develop a communication plan. A communication plan is a road map to reaching your communication goals for the year. A thorough plan will outline various strategies for communicating effectively with different stakeholders, including parents, students, staff, community and media because each group of stakeholders has unique characteristics. An effective plan also will help you identify the purpose of your communications. Are you trying to educate the public about a bond measure? Increase parent engagement? More actively engage families of color? Defining the purpose will help you choose the best tools.
• Plan your welcome-back messaging. The content and tone of your welcome-back messaging to staff, students and parents shapes attitudes for the coming year. If the messaging is upbeat, inclusive and optimistic, those receiving it tend to feel good about the year ahead. If it’s dull and gloomy, don’t be surprised if there’s a lack of enthusiasm for getting back to work and learning.
  Be inclusive as you communicate with staff. Welcome back all staff — including administrative assistants, food service, maintenance and transportation — and remind them of the important role they play in their daily contact with students and parents. If you have a theme for the school  year, roll it out for staff on their first day back and continue in your welcome-back letter to staff, students and parents. Take a moment to celebrate the past year’s successes so you can build on that success in the new year. Introduce and offer a warm welcome to new staff members. Review any new programs or initiatives and any big events coming up, like a new building dedication. Make the new year feel exciting and fresh.
• Post a list of volunteer opportunities. Back to school is an ideal time to recruit volunteers. Post a list of school volunteer opportunities on your school and district webpages, along with short descriptions of the task and time commitment. Plan a short volunteer orientation at your school to welcome and train new volunteers.

Contributed by Connie Potter, communications consultant