Your school district has a communications plan — amazing. But how do you know if it's really working as intended?

While many districts have a formal communications plan, only a few may regularly assess its effectiveness, and that gap can mean missed opportunities for engaging parents and supporting student success. Imagine the potential growth and improvement if every school district actively evaluated and refined its communication strategies.

Effective communication will always play a critical role in a school district's success; when parents are well-informed and engaged, they’re more likely to participate in school activities, support their children's learning at home, and contribute to a positive school environment.

Moreover, clear and consistent communication and branding help build trust and transparency, which are essential for navigating challenges and celebrating successes together.

To make sure your district’s communications plan is effective, you need to ask the right questions and evaluate your current strategies to identify strengths, uncover areas for improvement, and ensure that your efforts genuinely meet the needs of your entire school community.

Here are some key questions to guide you in developing and refining an effective communications plan that supports parent engagement and student success.

Question 1: Are your communication goals being met?

To start, assess whether your communication goals align with your district’s objectives. For example, if one of your goals is to enhance parent engagement, you should determine if parents are receiving timely updates about school events and student progress.

Remember, clear, specific goals and targeted audiences, like those identified by North Plainfield School District, are the benchmarks for success. They guide your messaging and help you select the right communication tools that provide measurable data to show if your efforts are getting your desired outcomes.

Question 2: Are you effectively reaching your audience?

Evaluating how well you identify and understand your audience is key to effective communication. Consider the different needs and preferences of your parents, students, staff, and community members. For example, parents may prefer receiving urgent updates via emails and text messages, while students might respond better to social media and app notifications.

Knowing these preferences lets you tailor your messages to different audiences and ensure everyone receives information in their preferred format.

Portland Public Schools identified the channels used for certain types of communications. They've clearly outlined them in the district’s communications plan, which provides a strategy for how communications should be delivered, who should receive them, and when they should be sent.

Question 3: How do you help families, teachers, and administrators see the value of different communications?

Parents, teachers, students, and administrators all have their preferred methods of communication, and a wider range of communication methods can cater to different types of parents and guardians. For instance, emails can convey detailed information, text messages are great for quick updates, and social media can engage parents with photos and videos.

Your District Website

Is your district website effective as an information hub?

Determine the functionality and user-friendliness of your district’s website, as well as your individual school sites. A well-maintained website should serve as a central hub for information, hosting news updates, event calendars, and resources for parents and students.

Assess whether your district’s website serves as a central hub for information by considering the following:

• Regular Updates: Check the timeliness of updates on your website’s homepage, news section, and event calendars.
• Engagement Metrics: Use analytics tools to track website traffic and engagement, like the number of visitors, page views, and average time spent on the site.
• Mobile Responsiveness: Ensure your websites are mobile-friendly and perform well on different devices. Verify menus are accessible, text is legible, and buttons are easy to tap on smaller screens.
• Feedback and Surveys: When in doubt, collect feedback from parents through surveys or feedback forms on the website. Ask specific questions about their experience using the website and any improvements they suggest. Check your website's ease of navigation and accessibility, too.

Central Islip School District's new site features a very convenient pop-out menu that expands to share the latest events, news, and social content with users. With mobile-friendly quick links to access resources and updates from across the district, the latest communications are never far away.

Your District’s Emails and Newsletters 

Are your emails effectively delivering detailed information?

While creating emails can be time-consuming, their value lies in delivering in-depth information directly to parents’ inboxes. To determine if your email communications are delivering detailed information, consider the following specific examples:

• Open Rates: Monitor your emails' open rates to gauge interest and reach. An open rate of 20-30% is generally considered average.
• Click-Through Rates (CTR): Analyze the click-through rates of links within your emails. A high CTR suggests that the content is relevant and engaging.
• Delivery Timing: Look at the timing of your emails to ensure they are sent at the best times for your audience and determine when parents are most likely to open and read your emails.
• Personalization: Personalized emails tend to have higher engagement rates. For example, use parents' names in the greeting and tailor the content based on their interests or their children's grade levels.
• Design and Layout: Review the design and layout of your emails to ensure they are visually appealing and easy to read. Test your emails on different devices to ensure they display correctly, images load properly, text is legible, and links are functional.

Your District’s Mobile App

Does your mobile app provide quick and convenient access to information?

Assess the effectiveness of your mobile app in providing parents with quick and convenient access to critical information and updates. Features like event reminders, access to school calendars, directories, and direct chats with teachers and parents make mobile apps particularly useful for families who prefer receiving information on the go.

To determine if your district’s mobile app is effectively providing quick and convenient access to information, consider:

• User Engagement Metrics: Track user engagement metrics such as the number of downloads, active users, and session duration.
• User Feedback and Reviews: Collect and analyze feedback from parents through surveys, app store reviews, and feedback forms. Ask specific questions about the usability, convenience, and helpfulness of the app features.
• Push Notification Effectiveness: Track the delivery, open, and response rates of notifications sent through the mobile app. For example, if you send a notification about an upcoming parent-teacher conference with Messages XR, Finalsite’s mass notification system, measure how many parents open the notification and take action.

Your District’s Mass Notifications

Are your mass notifications efficient?

Mass notifications are highly effective in ensuring critical, time-sensitive information is sent. However, is your mass notification system capable of delivering urgent updates and reminders through text messages, automated voice calls, SMS texts, social media, and website and mobile app notifications? Quickly sending updates across multiple channels through one interface is a must.

Question 4: Are you addressing assumptions in your communications strategy?

Leaders can help teams focus on data and feedback rather than relying on guesses or hunches about what parents want or need. Surveys and focus groups are valuable tools for gathering direct input from parents and providing real insights into their communication preferences and needs.

Regularly reviewing this feedback at the start or end of the school year helps your communications plan stay relevant and effective. It's essential to recognize that parents' needs may change over time, so sending regular surveys and adjusting strategies, like Onteora Central School District did, is great for supporting strong communications.

Onteora’s results were benchmarked against those of over 100 school districts nationwide, showing key areas that were meeting expectations and opportunities for improvement.

Question 5: How are you evaluating success?

Measuring the success of your communication efforts is crucial to improve. User metrics and analytics paint a clearer picture of how well different channels are performing. Tools like Google Analytics for website traffic, and social media engagement stats can reveal which messages are resonating and which areas need improvement.

Finalsite’s email marketing tool, Messages, can measure engagement and more with metrics like open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribes, and bounces. For instance, if email open rates are low, consider making subject lines more engaging or ensuring emails are mobile-friendly if click-through rates are lower than expected.

Question 6: Are you using social media effectively?

Ask yourself “why” you’re using certain social media platforms. Is it because they’re popular or because they offer unique features that improve communication? Or because "everyone" else is?

For example, Facebook might be effective for community and group building, while X (Twitter) could be useful for quick updates. Understanding parents' preferences and habits helps fine-tune your social media strategy for more impact.

Question 7: Are you choosing the right communication tools for engagement and reach?

Evaluate whether the communication tools your school selects balance efficiency with effectiveness. Some tools might be easy to use and time-saving, but they may not reach a large portion of your audience.

On the other hand, certain tools or multiple databases are harder to manage. Reviewing the reach and engagement of each tool will help determine whether your communication platforms are efficient and effective in reaching the largest audience possible.

It’s important to strike a balance between maximizing the impact of your communication efforts and ensuring that all parents and guardians stay informed and engaged.

Take a moment to consider:

• The benefits of each communication mode by reviewing successful strategies from other schools.
• Training sessions and workshops can also be beneficial, so think about offering hands-on sessions with different tools and methods.

Key Takeaway

Your school district’s communications plan is only effective if it supports parent engagement and student success throughout the year. That's why it's critical to regularly assess aspects of the plan, like the functionality of your district website and the impact and reach of your communication tools. By utilizing metrics, gathering feedback, and making data-driven adjustments, your district can optimize its communication strategies to keep parents well-informed and engaged.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connor has spent the last decade within the field of marketing and communications, working with independent schools and colleges throughout New England. As Finalsite’s Senior Content Marketing Manager, Connor plans and executes marketing strategies and digital content across the web. A former photojournalist, he has a passion for digital media, storytelling, coffee, and creating content that connects.