Friday, March 05, 1999
Public schools take new attitude
PR people, Web focus on image
BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Public-school officials want to send a message to the public: Hey, look us over.
From Web sites to roadside billboards to student art hung in businesses, public schools are marketing themselves more aggressively. It no longer works, officials say, to only nod to the public when schools want more tax money.
“Our little unwritten slogan is, "To act like we're always on the ballot.' We're not just telling people, "We want your money,' but telling them how we're spending their money,” said Fran Russ, spokeswoman for the Mentor Exempted Village School District, 25 miles east of Cleveland. She's president of the 200-member Ohio chapter of the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA).
That kind of thinking prompted a group of Cincinnati-area school representatives to create a salute to public schools. Dubbed Public Schools/Public Pride — Public Education Week, it's becoming a model for districts around Ohio.
IF YOU GO
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• What: Public Schools/Public Pride Expo of Excellence
• When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday
• Where: Forest Fair Mall, Winton Road and Interstate 275, Fairfield
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Now in its second year, Public Education Week starts Monday, five days of “come-look-at-us” activities in schools in Hamilton, Clermont, Butler and Warren counties. The event will be launched Saturday with an Expo of Excellence at Forest Fair Mall, featuring more than 200 interactive exhibits, displays and student performances.
Last year, about 30,000 people visited the Expo.
Noting the attention gained for private schools during the nationwide Catholic Schools Week helped spark the idea of highlighting public schools, said Jenny Walters, a communication specialist with the Hamilton County Educational Service Center.
“There are all these myths about public schools — they're failing, they're violent — and people question, "Where is my money going?'” Ms. Walters said. “There's a true need for public schools to market themselves.”
The need is greater now because there are more options available to parents looking for the best place to educate their children, said Karen Kleinz, NSPRA's assistant director in Rockville, Md.
“There are charter schools, private schools, for-profit schools, home schooling — options that were never available before,” she said.
Cincinnati Public Schools — the area's largest school district and one often plagued with budget concerns — will have 25 exhibition booths at the mall Expo.
“It's a chance to show off what we do, to put a positive swing toward public schools,” said Pamula Thomas, special assistant to Superintendent Steven Adamowski and the district's Expo coordinator.
The newest marketing tool being used by school districts: Internet Web sites.
District officials load them up with things parents and community members might want, such as lunch menus, sports schedules, messages from superintendents, students awards, scores on standardized tests.
Parents in the Mariemont City School District can go to the district's Web site, click on the Virtual Art Gallery, and look for their child's artwork, which also is displayed in the Mariemont Starbucks coffee store.
“They can call the grandparents in Idaho to see it,” said Julia Smart, the district's communications director. “Our Web page is growing all the time.”
School Web sites are becoming a “standard communication tool now,” Ms. Kleinz said.
Another school marketing tool: Employ someone to focus on getting the good news out.
Over the past two years, at least three more area school districts have hired people to handle communications.
“School districts are realizing that educators are not always good communicators,” said Kimberly Sullivan, a former newspaper reporter hired in October 1997 to direct communications for the Sycamore Community School District. “Part of my job is to better inform people about how schools have changed. People have very pat impressions of what public schools are like.”
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