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Illinois School Board Journal
May/June 2006
Something to talk about: Providing real news in real time
by Melea Smith
Melea Smith is director of communications for Naperville CUSD 203 and holds an Accreditation in Public Relations (APR). She is president of the Illinois chapter of the National School Public Relations Association.
Talk may be cheap, but school people know that rumors are costly.
If the key to real estate is location, location, location, then the key to successful public relations is communication, communication, communication. It's also the best way to fight misinformation. But is all communication created equal? Of course not.
Nearly four years ago, during our superintendent search in Naperville CUSD 203, community focus groups indicated that communication was a primary concern. Soon after joining the district, superintendent Alan Leis introduced a communication tool that has truly catapulted us into the 21st century.
We call it Talk203: a self-subscribing e-mail notification system that provides real news in real time to anyone who chooses to sign up, whether they have children in our school system or not. Talk about expanding the concept of community. Business partners, snowbirds, grandparents — anyone — can subscribe. (Go to http://www.naperville203.org and click on the Talk203 button.)
We developed a logo, marketed the system through school newsletters and encouraged parents to sign up using computer banks during building open houses. News stories, along with business partners and senior citizen volunteers, helped spread the word.
Following two years of 97 percent positive customer satisfaction ratings, garnered through an online survey, and even with enrollment growth of 213 percent last school year and 56 percent in 2005-06, we think we've found a winner in this "push" technology.
Currently, some 8,000 subscriber accounts exist, or about 70 percent of District 203 families, which we are told approaches the "tipping point." And the number grows every day. Crisis updates, upcoming events, policy information and general announcements fly through cyberspace weekly, though we try not to "spam" the faithful.
Gone is the paper newsletter with month-old news. If there was a lock-down at school today, parents know about it before they leave their office, giving rumors no time to gain hold. This also gives mom and dad the edge at the dinner table!
As one of America's digital cities, Naperville census data reveals that more than 90 percent of residents have an Internet connection and, of that number, 80 percent enjoy high-speed capability. That news alone was enough to convince us that e-mail communication was the way to go.
While many districts maintain a listserv, we decided that Talk203 should be self-subscribing: people choose to sign up and maintain their own personal profiles. Many vendors offer a variety of options and price tags. We chose an off-site server that provided us with a safety net, in case our own servers are down during an emergency. We also chose a provider that gave us the ability to run reports, target messages to various communities within our district (school-specific, business partners, special and gifted education, for example) and to drill down still further, to target specific grade levels, middle school "pods" and people who want information about how to contribute to our education foundation.
Even our education reporters are subscribers, and what an outcome that has produced. Verbiage from Talk203 messages has appeared in news stories, columns and — that most sacrosanct newspaper territory — editorials. We asked for attribution and received it. Instead of being reported in the news, we were literally framing it.
Talk203 was becoming the talk of the town. There was no longer a need for a Key Communicator network — every subscriber has the inside track.
Does this create trust, calm the waters and encourage two-way communication? You bet! Even though we do not encourage subscribers to hit the "reply" button and talk to us, they do — by the dozens. And we make every attempt to answer all questions, except when the volume reaches hundreds of e-mails a day, as it did during our near-strike in August and again when the Board of Education decided to change next year's school calendar. We have decided not to view these circumstances as overwhelming, but instead, as growth opportunities.
With assistance from television, radio and print reporters, who urged people to "Sign up for Talk203 to receive the latest information about teacher talks,"1,200 parents registered in one day last summer. They came for temporary crisis updates (would classes open on time or not — a question we answered at 2 a.m. the first day of school), but stayed on as subscribers because they valued the timely, important information they received.
Talk203 is plain text; there is no flashy formatting. We often point people to our Web site for further information. The power is in the quick delivery, allowing us to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and impart important information directly to stakeholders. District secretaries report a reduced number of parent phone calls seeking information. Volunteers and event planners report an increase in attendance at all events "advertised" on Talk203.
This year, we added a telephone call-out component, with a direct link to our Student Information System database, because sometimes there's a need to reach more than 70 percent of the population. Parents were very grateful, for example, to receive a call from the superintendent telling them that the teachers' contract had been settled in the middle of the night and the first day of school would begin as scheduled that morning.
Though pleasing all of the people all of the time is a continuing challenge, our numbers prove that Talk203 comes really close. One thing is certain: the desire for instant information is here to stay.