THE COMMUNICATIONS PLAN
A comprehensive district communications plan for Common Core State Standards is one of the best investments you can make to create support and understanding among your staff, parents and community.
A communications plan template is outlined below. Use this as a guide, but evaluate each part for its relevance to your stakeholders. The key is to be flexible and thoughtful in developing a roadmap before you start - think about where you want to go and what you want to accomplish. Here is how to do just that.
STEP 1
Begin with the end in mind: GOALS & INTENDED OUTCOMES
Start with this question: What do the Common Core State Standards ultimately seek to do/change in your school district?
Your district’s response is the baseline for the communications plan. The goals of the plan can be broad and basic: “Address parents’ and the community’s concerns”; and/or specific and advanced: “Achieve a mark of 90% in a survey category of teachers who say they are ‘fully informed’ about Common Core State Standards and district implementation”.
WORKSHEET
List your communications goals here (2-6 are appropriate):
1. Basic: Inform teachers.
Advanced: Achieve a mark of 90% in a survey category of teachers who say they are ‘fully informed’ about Common Core State Standards and district implementation.
2. Basic: Inform parents/guardians.
Advanced: Survey parent/guardians to identify their top five concerns related to Common Core State Standards, and then address the patrons and their concerns through at least five different channels. Survey again for effectiveness and penetration of your messages.
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STEP 2
Create a Team: THE COMMON CORE COMMITTEE
When putting together this communications strategy, a critical early step is assembling a team of people to develop, gain support for and promote the Common Core State Standards agenda. This team will likely involve people from curriculum and instruction, parents, teachers, students, administration (finance) and others from both inside and outside the school district. These people should agree to become well-informed, engaged, and contributory. This “on-message” team is crucial to a successful internal/external communications campaign.
Critical Note: Your superintendent must be on board and supportive with this team.
WORKSHEET
Make a list of the people you want on your team (4-8 people are appropriate, including you). Here are a few suggestions for representatives you might include:
1. Curriculum Director
2. Teacher Representative
3. PTA Representative
4. Student Representative
5. Communications Director and any key players(s) on your team
6. District Administration Representation – finance is a good choice
7. Community or Business Representation
8. A key communicator in your district who is supportive and influential.
STEP 3
Always go inside/out: INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS
Quick and basic research will help you find out what your internal community already knows about Common Core. This can be done with a survey, and/or informal conversations with principals or teachers. Then you must develop ways to ensure quick and efficient communication with internal staff. This may be done on your internal website, via principals, etc. Identify key communicators in internal ranks who will spread your messages accurately and faithfully.
Key Communicators are influence leaders inside your district. These people can become strong cohorts and allies in supporting your goals and spreading your messages. You can create meaningful partnerships with Key Communicators by:
1. Inviting possible Key Communicators to an organizing breakfast where you lay out your plan for a Key Communicators network, and secure their commitment to help.
2. Communicating with them regularly.
3. Asking them to share specific messages with their family and friends, and reporting responses and/or questions back to you.
4. Acknowledging and thanking them for their help.
5. Analyzing their feedback and evaluating how effectively you are executing your communication plan.
INTERNAL WORKSHEET
List way(s) you can survey your audience(s) to see what they know about CCSS. Here are some suggestions:
1. Ask principals to conduct informal interviews with staff and parents.
2. Hire help to do a phone survey.
3. Use your website and Facebook or other social media pages to ask for feedback.
4. Work closely with your superintendent to get information from the community via the Board of Education and political key communicators.
List ways you will communicate information internally, including Key Communicators for each education site in your district. Example:
1. List names of Key Communicators for each school site.
2. Post FAQ’s on district/school websites, Facebook, through electronic, and print media
3. Meet with internal groups; send letters home to parents; present at board meetings
4. Stand-up faculty meetings; present to PTA officers
5. Prepare specific, targeted messages for Key Communicators
STEP 4
Know who you are talking to: IDENTIFYING TARGET AUDIENCE(S)
Keep a strong focus on your district’s friends and allies, and what messages or requested actions will move them to become a champion for Common Core State Standards. This will enable you to both grow your base of support quickly and increase the intensity of the communications messaging. An informed and active base of support allows you to spend more time on targeted outreach to those not fully sold on Common Core State Standards.
Audiences may include:
· Educators and administrators (current and retired)
· Key legislators / legislative committees
· Parents
· Students
· Key business and workforce leaders
· The head of state education agencies (K-12 and post-secondary)
· Key community groups in your state (e.g. civil rights, religious, non-profit groups)
· The media (Note: While the media is often considered a ‘target audience’, you are not looking to gain or maintain the support of the media. The media is actually a vehicle by which you can reach and influence your target audiences; thus, it should be included on your list.)
AUDIENCE WORKSHEET
Who are your target audiences, and what is the best way to communicate to each audience?
Hint: keep it simple and strategic. Here are some ideas:
AUDIENCE COMMUNICATION MODE
1. Teachers Stand-up faculty meeting, teachers’ newsletter, in-service meetings, website, e-mail
2. Parents PTA face-to-face, backpack messages, e-mail, website/Facebook, text messages
3. Faith Communities Interfaith alliance, letter from superintendent
4. People with no direct connection to Newspapers, Key Communicators,
schools and students website/Facebook
5. Students Messages from teachers, student council
6. Political Groups Attend meetings, letters from superintendents, facts and FAQ
STEP 5
Getting heard above all the noise: CREATING MESSAGES
Common Core messages will be most effective if they are understandable, simple and clear. Please know you cannot communicate these messages too much.
Research shows people need to hear a message five to seven times before it begins to register in the brain. NSPRA has developed a wide range of messages for you to consider. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. But, you do have to decide what message will work for your district. Here are some messages you might consider:
Hint: Keep your messages brief. Keep them local.
Common Core is good for our students because…
Common Core will enable our community to…
Common Core will not…
Our teachers support Common Core because…
In order to create and deliver effective messages, remember that communication is a process that includes:
SENDER – CHANNEL - MESSAGE – RECEIVER – FEEDBACK
As you and your team are creating clear, simple and direct messages, keep the five parts of the communication process in mind:
SENDER -- Who delivers a message is incredibly important. Parents/guardians like to hear from the principal or their child’s teacher. The community wants to hear from the district, but they believe what support staff, teachers and other parents say the most.
HINT: Be aware of COMMUNITY politics and know who from the political sector can be an ally.
CHANNEL -- How the message is sent also makes a difference. Some people like to read the message. Some people like to hear it and be able to ask questions at a meeting or in person one-to-one. Some in your audience will want the messages in an e-mail or on a webpage, and others will only look at text messages. Find out how your district’s people want information delivered to them - and deliver it to them that way as much as possible.
Hint: No district can be “all things to all people,” however you want your target audiences to receive messages through varied communications channels and news/public information sources.
Hint: Also, as you consider the different resources you want to develop, you should always consider first the reasons you want to undertake them. It is a good idea to consider a mix of resources to get your message out through various communications channels; you want your target audiences to see your messages in various news and public sources.
MESSAGE: How the message “sounds” is a key element to effective communication. Be respectful, unemotional, and straightforward in each system of message delivery. Maintain a high standard of quality. If the message is misspelled, rote, bland or hard to read, then your audience will think Common Core State Standards are, too.
Hint: Do not sound defensive or arrogant. The best advice is to pretend you are talking/writing to a best friend who really is interested in knowing about Common Core.
RECEIVER -- Your district’s target audiences. It is worth repeating that different messages and senders work best with different people.
HINT: Internal audiences are most important. Key communicators among staff, parents and the community are essential.
FEEDBACK -- Evaluation is critical to measure the communication campaign’s reach and effect. Feedback allows you to build on strengths, and tweak a message to be stronger or clearer as necessary. A formal qualitative survey is always best, but informally asking everyone: “What are you hearing?” or “How is it going?” and tallying the comments by each audience can be helpful and guide further work.
MESSAGING WORKSHEET
List your main Common Core messages:
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List your target audiences and what messages and will work best with each:
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List the people (senders) and institutions (channels) that will be effective in sending the messages:
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List the ways you will receive feedback and evaluate performance of messages and the campaign:
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STEP 6
PLAN THE WORK, WORK THE PLAN
As you determine the district’s key audiences, together with the materials/actions to be developed for each key audience, map out the “who, what, and by-when” accountabilities to deliver your messages. These action lines can – and should – include leveraging existing communications channels and partnerships, along with newly-developed outreach activities.
Any activity can be explored/explained in more detail below. Many will become more complex, requiring additional actions, responsibilities and deadlines.
MESSAGE:ACTIVITY/
PRODUCT/EVENT / Targeted Audience(s) / Timeline (When Will This Occur) / Person/Organization Responsible / Evaluation &
Feedback
Methods, Notes
Common Core is good for our students and teachers.
Back-to-School Mtgs, FAQ handout, Letter from Principal
E-mail, Website/s, Facebook, Twitter
Staff Newsletter, Faculty In-Service / Parents/ Teachers / First three weeks of school / Curriculum Director
Core Standards Communication Team / Informal survey by principals
E-mail survey
Common Core Videos: “Key Messages”
Shown at Back-to-School
Push text msgs., Facebook
On website and/or community TV station(s)
Twitter / Community, Teachers, Parents, Students / First Month of School / Communications Director
ITV Director / Hits on website
Informal survey
Feedback via e-mail
Superintendent letter to the community explaining Common Core
Back-to-School publication, website,
Editorial submission to media. / Community, Teachers, Parents, Students / First Day of School / Communications Director
Superintendent / Informal survey; list of places the letter has appeared.
Hints:
This can become very complicated if you have not done it before. Keep it simple. It is much better to do a few things well than a lot of things poorly.
Possible materials include:
FAQ, fact sheet, district position paper, community and district supporters of Common Core State Standards, quotes, PowerPoint presentation, letters to editor and legislators, myth buster, fact card with simple messages and information about who to contact, Facebook and text messages, blog entry, etc.
Ask yourself and your team: What works in our district?
Possible activities/events include:
Visit PTA meetings, presentations at school board meetings, meetings with media editors, speakers’ bureau, community information nights, coffee with the principal, backpack info day, survey work, website, Facebook page, text message, Twitter hash-tag, etc.
Ask yourself and your team: What works in our district?
Use New Media:
Communications research is clear: the younger the parent, the more they want information from e-mails, websites, texts, Twitter and Facebook. Simple, direct messages tend to be passed on to friends via e-mail, and reposted on Facebook. Use Twitter to send a quick CCSS fact and a website URL where there is more information.
Step 7
Money matters! THE BUDGET
Estimated Budget:______
Once you have identified your budget – including existing resources, in-kind services and any money that has been raised – you need to allocate it based on where you want to have the greatest impact. It is important to identify early on how much you are willing to spend on different resources or materials.
HINT: We suggest the budget people be charged with knowing the law/ethics concerning use of public funds to inform the public about CCSS.
SAMPLE Budget / Updated as of: MM/DD/YYYYBudgeted / Spent to Date / Remaining $$ / Notes/ Assumptions
Talent Costs
Consultants
Materials Costs
Design/development
Printing
Distribution/Dissemination
Media Costs
Print ads
(newspaper, etc.)
Broadcast ads
(TV, radio, etc.)
Online ads
Hint: Try hard to get free
media coverage
Event(s)
Press conference(s)
Hints: See activities/events Step 6
Research
Survey(s)
Coordination Costs
Internal meetings & travel
OTHER:
Total / 0.00 / 0.00 / 0.00
STEP 8
EXECUTE and COMMUNICATE THE PLAN
Putting the plan into action takes courage and preparation. Materials must be ready on time. Actions taken by you - and other accountable leaders – must be executed according to a pre-established timeline.