Catholic school administrators communicate with many entities, from students and staff to families and communities. While they might communicate with some of the same audiences, large and small schools have different communication needs and challenges to overcome. Fortunately, effective communication strategies can help you provide consistent, clear, and impactful messaging. Let’s look more closely at essential strategies for coordinated communication in private K-12 schools.
Build a Communication Plan
A communication plan offers a simple, organized guidebook for you and your team to use in different contexts. It typically outlines the processes for sending messages and when to use certain channels. By creating a communication plan upfront, you can make sure your decisions align with the school’s overarching goals.
Some elements to evaluate in a communication plan include:
- Purpose: Each message has a purpose. It might inform, entertain, or provide emergency updates. These purposes can help you determine ways to handle the other aspects of your communication plan, like how you will send each type of message.
- Channels: Identify all communication channels available to you, such as email, phone calls, social media, newsletters, family portals, your school’s website, and even your intercom announcements. Outline which messages will be best for each mode of communication. For instance, you might send families a text message about a canceled school day but promote an upcoming event on social media and your website. Depending on family preferences, this approach would keep texts limited to the most important updates.
- Audiences: Consider who each message goes to. How you talk to students will differ from how you talk to teachers or families. Outline your priorities and considerations for these audiences, such as languages spoken and comfort with technology.
- Timing: When should each message go out? Specify timeframes for them. For example, you might start promoting events a month prior and send weekly updates to teachers every Monday. Some messages could go out as needed, such as automatic payment reminders that trigger after a missed due date.
- Responsible parties: Establish a chain of command and identify who is responsible for different types of messaging.
Revisit your communication plan over time to evaluate its effectiveness and accommodate your school’s development.
Establish Best Practices for Digital Communications
Since you will likely share information across multiple channels, consider how you will keep these messages consistent and effective. What works for one platform might be poorly received in another. While the messages may need some adjustments, make sure each one still matches your school’s image.
Keep these tips in mind when working with specific channels:
- Social media: Social media can help you connect with families, the community, and students. Build excitement for events, share a peek into school life, or highlight a big achievement. You can also leverage sharing features to reach more people.
- Newsletters: Regular newsletters are great for discussing events, important dates, informative topics, and success stories. Highlight students and staff throughout your stories and consider how you can share your school’s missions and values within them. You could even have students get involved and help write the newsletter.
- Websites: Your website is a vital resource for many people — from families and staff to community members and media personnel. Make sure your school website’s design is easy to use and navigate. Include resources like your school calendar and contact information for different departments.
- Phone calls: Always have the caller identify the school upfront in phone calls. Make sure settings, like hold music and voicemail messages, match your school’s communication strategy.
- Emails and texts: In general, keep your text-based communications concise. Today’s families are busy and might read many messages throughout the day. A long-winded email might get overlooked, leaving your important update unread. On the other hand, a brief and straightforward email can cut through the noise with relevant details. Also, consider using pre-built or custom templates to quickly and consistently write your messages.
Remember in each way you communicate, keep your students’ information safe and follow all applicable regulations.
Centralize Your Communication
With so many ways to get in touch, organization is essential in strategies for effective school communication. Use a centralized communication center to keep your messaging in one place. Using a single source of information can greatly simplify communications management and help eliminate duplicate or outdated information.
Offer Opportunities for Face-to-Face Interaction
Digital communication might be extensive for today’s schools, but face-to-face interactions are still valuable. One-on-one conversations help build connections and show families the individualized attention you can offer their students. Give families a few different opportunities to engage with administrators and staff during the year. For example, your school can sponsor information sessions on financial aid, upcoming summer academic camps, and host admissions events for prospective families. These can be important touchpoints for families to interact and get to know your admissions and enrollment staff.
Make communication a central part of your relationships with families, students, and the community. Offer ways for these audiences to easily contact your administration, including open houses. You can also solicit feedback through surveys or suggestion boxes.
Consider a Communication Audit
Communication audits are an important part of your school’s long-term communication efforts. Before starting the audit, consider adding school alumni, a parent volunteer, and a student leader to your audit panel. This will help your team gain insight into how effective your current messaging is and what ideas resonate with different audiences. Your panel might also additionally interview students, staff, and family members. By enabling this honest and constructive feedback, you can develop or adjust your private K-12 communication plan accordingly.
You can ask someone, like a trusted mentor, for an informal communication review. Another option for larger schools is to request a communication audit from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA). These audits include quantitative and qualitative research.
Set a Good Example for Students
Communication skills are vital for today’s students. Each time your administration represents the school, model effective communication for your students. Speak with empathy, confidence, and consistency, and follow through with your actions. Being open to feedback is also part of good communication, so make sure your community knows your school leadership welcomes comments and questions.
Achieve Effective Communication with TADS and Educate
Enacting these effective communication strategies in small schools requires organization and the right tools. Get both with TADS and Educate SIS. Educate was designed for small and midsized private and independent schools and contains a powerful hub for your essential communications. Built into the platform, the Educate Communications Center has tools for automated messaging, customizable templates, email tracking, and more. Since it works with your SIS, you know your contact information is up-to-date.
Save time while providing consistent communication to families and meeting your messaging goals. Contact us today to learn more about how TADS and Educate SIS can help you improve private school communications.