School communication is now more important than ever. While the 2019-2020 school year was one of the most challenging, with school shutting down with little warning and a scramble to help keep families, staff and students informed, there were many bright spots in school public relations.
It was nice to see busy school communications professionals take a few moments to celebrate accomplishments at the WSPRA online ceremony Thursday night. Congratulations to all the winners, we at S360 look forward to reading the winning entries and learning from you and with you.
At S360, we are so proud to partner with school districts to help communicate throughout the year. We’ve been working on enrollment boosting campaigns, COVID-19 communications and our continued focus on informational bond and levy campaigns. In addition to our NSPRA partner awards this summer, we were proud to have helped in winning entries announced this week.
Public relations campaign
We love bonds and levy informational campaigns. It’s the perfect use of that #SchoolPR RPIE (Research, Planning, Implementation, Evaluation). Congrats to S360 client winners in the Public Relations Campaign category, pulling together all these elements for winning communications work.
Best in Category (PERFECT)
- Issaquah School District. S360 was proud to partner on public opinion research and video production on their winning February 2020 levy.
Award of Excellence:
- Bellevue School District. S360 worked with Bellevue on public opinion research, strategy and messaging, as well as branded materials and the videos. It was a pleasure working with the Bellevue team!
- North Thurston Public Schools. From public opinion research, to strategy, messaging and all materials – logo, mailer, fact sheets, web copy, social copy — and digital media ads, print ads, videos and presentation materials, S360 was proud to partner with the NTPS comms team to help communicate this complex bond and levy package.
Honorable Mention
- Everett Public Schools. S360 partnered with EPS well in advance to plan for a bond in April 2020. After schools closed, the election got pushed back to August, a difficult time to run a school campaign. We are so proud of all the work the district did to inform around the needs for a capital bond, but the measure just barely fell short of the 60 percent needed.
Video
Video can tell a story like no other medium. At S360, we are proud of our in-house video team. Five of the winning WSPRA videos were made in partnership with Strategies 360. Check out how we told the stories of bond and levy needs through video, below.
Best in Category
Award of Merit:
Honorable Mention:
Social Media
S360 works with districts to develop comprehensive social media plans, including infographics to help tell the story. The Bellevue team also did a great job capturing photos while they accompanied the S360 videographer on bond video shoots. You can see how the images help tell the story of the need for the bond.
Best in Category
Again, congratulations to all the WSPRA winners this year. We value the work of school communications and know that now, more than ever, districts and communities are relying on your critical work. S360 is always available to assist, lend a hand in a project, or just be a strategic ear to help.