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- [00:02]
John Brucato
You're listening to ASBO International's School Business Insider. I'm your host, John Brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to School Business Insider. Today, we're exploring a critical aspect of school leadership, effective communication. From navigating crises to building trust with the community, clear and thoughtful communication is at the heart of successful district operations. Joining us is Melissa Bram, associate director of the National School Public Relations Association. In this episode, Melissa will share insights on developing robust communication strategies, handling smaller but impactful crises, and tackling financial challenges that constrain district community relations. We'll also discuss how fostering trust with your community can make all the difference when navigating turbulent times. Melissa, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you.
- [01:18]
Melissa Bram
Thank you, John. I'm happy to be here.
- [01:20]
John Brucato
So we have a lot to cover today, and I think district communications is something that maybe we don't talk about too often, especially from the School of Business official aspect. But before we get into too much of that, can you just give our listeners a little bit of your background and really what you do at NSPRA?
- [01:37]
Melissa Bram
Absolutely. Well, I worked in school districts for over 12 years, and I loved working with my school business officials and getting the chance to help numbers be more relatable to the average person. So that was kind of my jam. And then I joined the association about six years ago. Here at the association, as associate director, I oversee our research services. So I'm kind of a numbers geek myself. I love data, but I get to work with our chapters and work on our programming for our annual conference. And it's always been fascinating to me. A lot of people who go into communications do not consider themselves numbers people, and that's usually the area where they're least comfortable with. So, you know, I've had a chance to work with SPOs over the years, both in districts and now with my association. And I love trying to build that relationship and get those people together because it's an important relationship.
- [02:33]
John Brucato
Right. And I mean, the fact that you said that communications people don't often think of themselves as number people, I think especially in this line of work, it is really inherent in the job because I, from the different communications people I've worked with and had the pleasure of working with in my career, they know the numbers really, really well because they're the ultimate line of defense when it goes out to the public. So they're checking and making sure that they understand what the community members are likely going to interpret. So, you know, you make a great point. But so when we talk about communication, why do you think effective communication is so vital for school districts? And how has your organization really supported districts in that space?
- [03:11]
Melissa Bram
You know, communications, really, when it's done well, it builds relationships, it brings people together, or if they don't come together, they at least understand each other. And I think that's what. Why it's so important for a school district to have effective communications. You know, it's all about building relationships and building understanding. And when you think about what a school district does, it affects pretty much the two most important things to a community, their children and their wallets. And so we want to make sure that there's good understanding, there's trust on both sides. And we do that through effective communications. And spur, as an association, we are members. We have more than 2800 members all across the country. And they're working in districts. They're running their websites and working with the media and doing their special events. But they need support. Just like teachers need professional development. Just like school business officials need professional development, communicators need professional development. Both to continue to remain great at the latest practices, to challenge themselves, to think differently about things, and also just to have a community of support who gets what they do. So that's what we do at unspra. We give them professional development, whether that's our monthly webinars or we have an online community. We have a lot of samples and resources. We run a great awards program every year, which I love to see our finance communication award winner. And there's some really great school finance communications work happening out there. And we do. We've done some special reports. In fact, one I talked about recently, I was at the ASBO conference in September, and I brought with us a brochure we put together all about false information and how districts are dealing with false information in their communities, including around finance topics. So we just provide 365 some sort of support and professional development.
- [05:08]
John Brucato
And so what does PD look like for a communications specialist? I mean, our listenership is made up broadly of school finance professionals. So we all know what our PD looks like. But I'm curious, what's those layers of the onion for the comms people and what does a conference look like for them?
- [05:23]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, that's great. I think it Depends on where you are in your career path. And that's probably true of any association. But a lot of our folks who are maybe in their first five years, they still need to learn the tactical stuff like what's the latest and greatest. If I'm trying to increase engagement on my Instagram or my Facebook pages or what are some good practices when it comes to video storytelling and what software should I be using? So we provide, we have mini labs where it's very technical. Those are our monthly webinars. But then we also have content for someone who's a little bit more mid career or veteran. You know, they've got to think strategically. They've got, sometimes they're managing staff. So we might have panel discussions where experts in our field are talking about lessons learned, best practices, ethical challenges in our space. Working ethically in communications is a big priority for us. So it is, you know, a lot of it is, you know, how can I communicate year round about this tough topic to build trust? Or how can I reach some of these niche audiences in my community that I don't think are tuning in for my messages and just sharing with them strategies that are working well in other school systems. We also try to bring in some platforms. We'll bring in outside experts to talk to our members. So it really, if you think, you know, there's a best practice in how you teach in the classroom, there's also a best practice of how you communicate to families. And that's what we're bringing them.
- [06:57]
John Brucato
Are you finding that artificial intelligence is infiltrating your PD as well? Because that seems to be the hot topic for a lot of associations, especially with asbo. At our last conference, there were multiple, multiple sessions of artificial intelligence derivatives of how to use that effectively, how to identified in our work. Are you finding the same thing in your organization?
- [07:20]
Melissa Bram
Absolutely. We actually did a whole series of programming last year focused around getting communicators comfortable with the idea of using AI. I feel like last year was kind of our year one in overcoming fear.
- [07:36]
John Brucato
Sure.
- [07:37]
Melissa Bram
And now we're more in the phase of okay, we've gotten through the fear, we're not afraid of it now let's think how we can use it more effectively. So we've had webinars, we had sessions at our conference in the summer. We actually added, we're getting ready for our 2025 seminar next July. It's going to be in Washington D.C. and we added a whole track to our proposal submissions focused on AI. So we're inviting content. But I'm really hopeful that we'll get some sessions that are sort of next level thinking about our policies around AI and how we allow for it and how do we use it to increase efficiency in our teams. Because that's, that's where I think really the power of it is. It's not, it's not doing my work for me, it's letting me accomplish more work with the time that I have.
- [08:28]
John Brucato
Right, right. Well, best of luck with that. It seems like a lot of organizations and professions are really just scratching the surface. And as we learn AI, it seems to be evolving, outpacing us in terms of how fast it's evolving than what we're learning. So it should be interesting.
- [08:42]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, well, and there's so many ways to use it uniquely for your organization. You know, Everybody just thinks ChatGPT, but you can create custom systems for your organization. I haven't come across too many districts that are exploring that yet, but they're using a lot of AI powered tools on their websites and in different areas. So I'm interested to see what they're doing with it.
- [09:02]
John Brucato
Yes, same here, Same here. So tell me a little bit more about how your organization, ASMO International, have really collaborated in the past. You know, I was introduced to you through Elika and our team here. So obviously you guys have been working in some capacity together. But what can you give me some examples of what both organizations have really done in the past and maybe what opportunities exist kind of moving forward with both organizations?
- [09:27]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, absolutely. So we, when we first connected, I want to say it was about three years ago, really connected. One of the first things we did was a working together webinar where we had communication professionals and SBOs in their district talking about that relationship. What does a great relationship look like? How do they work together? How do they work together proactively? Since that, since then I've been attending the ASBO conferences, hosting a booth there. Thank you to ASBO for welcoming me out to that space and delivering sessions really focused on communication best practices. And the one I did most recently was sort of about bringing storytelling into how we talk about financial topics, but I talk a lot about financial communication best practices and we've had some discussions around collaborating. I know that ASBO does some great toolkits with other industry professional groups, and I think that there's a lot of space for us to work together in that area. But I'd love to keep having the ASPO folks come out to our events and just continue to build that relationship.
- [10:33]
John Brucato
Yeah, and like you said, it is such a critical relationship because communicating the finances, as you said, we're in charge of the money and the community's children, two very, very important things. So being able to articulate what's going on and how that money is being used effectively is critically important. So glad to hear about that relationship between NASBO and, what is it? Nispra. Is that what you call it?
- [10:57]
Melissa Bram
That's how we say it.
- [10:58]
John Brucato
Enspra. All right. NSPRA it is. So you mentioned a little bit earlier the importance of effective communication, but can you explain to me what effective communication or what strong communication really is? Because every district may have a different idea of what if that they think they may be effectively communicating and it could be not reaching their audience. So what are some components of that effective communication?
- [11:24]
Melissa Bram
There are some really important moments when we think about what makes effective communication. And I know as well has a great meritorious budget award for you're doing really, really well with how you're communicating in finances. When we talk, though, more generally about great communications, effective communications, it starts with two way. At least that's best practice today. And I've definitely heard district leaders in the past say we just need to get our message out. We need to get it everywhere. We need to say it all the time. That's very one way that's pushing out information. But when we think about two way, we're both sharing information and we're also listening, we're hearing back and we're refining what we do based on what we hear back. So when we talk about best practices in communication, it's being sure we have that listening and refining component to our communication program and practices. I think another really important part, and maybe because it's a passion of mine, is research that we get research into the communication needs, barriers and priorities of our audiences and use that to refine our practices. So this is just one of many examples. But when you think about there are gazillion and one social media platforms out there, and each one has a different little niche audience on it. And who you're going to find on Reddit is probably a little different than who you find on Snapchat and who you find on Facebook. And so we nobody has enough communication staff to be on all the platforms. So we kind of have to choose, you know, where are we going to focus our energy? Well, if we're going to make that choice, we need to understand our community. Where are our staff, where are our families, where are, you know, our students, parents, where is our community network? What platforms are they on how are they using those platforms and researching that is going to help us be more engaging in all of those spaces or figure out, you know, what I could do. I could do a newsletter and a podcast and a blog and a website, but I don't have time. And you know what? My community really only needs the website and the E newsletter. So it just, it helps you use your resources wisely and more effectively, I think. So that research piece is really important and there are lots of different ways to do research. It could be surveys and focus groups, it could be looking at national data, it could be doing communication audits. There's lots of different ways to get at that information. But really, really important to effective communications. The other thing I would say, and I think this is both a core belief of my own and a core belief of nspra, but transparency, a commitment to transparency is really important to effective communication. That builds trust with all of those groups we're trying to build relationships with. And that sometimes means. So there are laws that say we can't say certain things. Sure, sure, I acknowledge that. So when I'm talking about transparency, I'm not saying we have to tell everything to everyone, but I'm saying we have to tell the important things to the people who care about them and who are affected by them. We have to sometimes allow our communities to see us wrestle with challenging topics. I think by doing that we show our humanity. People don't relate to this like, you know, strange entity they have no interactions with. They relate to individual human beings. And so we have to show some of our humanity. And we do that through transparency during difficult times as well as the good times. So I think those are some of the sort of core principles to effective communications.
- [15:05]
John Brucato
Thank you. I have a couple follow up questions. So you had mentioned the importance of two way communication. I could not agree more. You just get a lot more out of your community and they get a lot more out of you when you're conversing back and forth. But two way communication can oftentimes be challenging in terms of how much time it takes, where do you find the bandwidth to ensure that you're effectively communicating in a two way fashion? Because putting newsletters out and posts on Facebook and social media are easy in the sense that it is one way you can just blast it out. The same message gets to all platforms pretty similarly. But when you're inviting feedback, how do you ensure that you have the bandwidth to do that? Because if people are responding to you and then you're not responding back, then it really isn't two way. You're just, it's going into the void. So talk to me how districts are able to kind of deal with potential bandwidth issues with that.
- [15:54]
Melissa Bram
That's, that is a really important point because I think we have some organizations that prioritize two way communications and as a result, you know, I've done some interactions with some that are doing surveys practically every month. And then when we talk to their audiences, they say, well, I don't know that it matters what I say. What do they do with it? I never hear. And so that volume was too much in that community.
- [16:20]
John Brucato
Right.
- [16:20]
Melissa Bram
You know, that you start to build up fatigue. So I think it is vital that in that listening we demonstrate how we're listening to it. So if you for example, only do one survey a year and that's your listening instrument, but then you show people, here's what we heard from you and here's what we're doing with it, that's going to build trust and that's going to demonstrate that you engage in two way communication. So it's not that it has to happen daily or weekly, but it has to happen authentically however you do it. You have to be able to follow up with it. So yeah, I would say modify your desire for it with your ability to react to it. So, you know, sometimes districts will post email addresses that people can respond to or send feedback to. A lot of websites these days will have interactive forms on their website where you can submit a comment or a question and the system directs it to the appropriate person. And sometimes they'll set standards. You know, people need to respond within 24 to 48 hours. Response is important. I would say it's okay to set expectations to let people know. So if you've got a feedback mechanism, you can let them know, depending on volume, you know, please expect a response within, you know, 48 hours or you know, within a business week. So part of that two way experience is setting expectations so people know they're less likely to get mad if they know, oh, it might be three days before I hear something. And then having, you know, it's possible with some of these AI tools, with some of our social media platforms, we know what kind of questions people ask a lot and we can pre populate chat bots and things with responses to common questions and that can help manage the volume. So it's both, I think it's setting expectations, it's using smart technology tools to manage common questions as part of that. But I would definitely recommend to designate some Time, you know, it might be over the summer for some administrative teams, particularly as a school business official, where you're gonna work with your team to say, here is some themes we heard in feedback this year. Let's actively spend an hour or two thinking about what we heard this year and what changes might we wanna make next year. Like, part of preparing for two way communications is designating some time to be able to think about it.
- [19:01]
John Brucato
Sure. So two way communications isn't just responding to every angry Facebook post questioning why you called a snow day. It's really making sure that if you put a purposeful survey out there, those responses are then relayed back to the community to know that this is what you and your counterparts in the community said. It's not, you know, trying to put out every single little fire that pops up.
- [19:21]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, and I would say too, you know, being there is in some regard, you know, the particular example you mentioned, sometimes communities police themselves on social media, don't necessarily have to respond to every comment. Sometimes your teachers or your other parents will jump in and take care of it for you. But, you know, if there are questions posed out there, if there's an accurate information posted, you want to be able to say, you know, that you appreciate the feedback, but here's a page on the website you can go to with detailed, accurate information. You know, so you do have to have a little bit of moderation, but, you know, sometimes people will help you.
- [20:03]
John Brucato
So communications, I'm assuming, is a lot different in the present than it has been maybe 15, 20 years ago with the advent of social media. Can you talk to me about what role social media plays in the communication landscape and how have districts been able to leverage it effectively?
- [20:19]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, you know, I think we have a lot of fragmented audiences going to different locations. And that's been part of the challenge, I think, for communications for school districts in general, but for communication communication practitioners is that our audiences aren't in one place anymore. We can't just send something to the local newspaper and know it'll get to everybody. So we really do have to diversify our efforts because our audiences are so many different places. But I think the most important concept around social media is that is where people talk, they engage, they have conversations. If you're going to enter into that space, you need to be there to have a conversation because that's what people are doing, that's why they're there. So I think we as a school system, engaging on social media, it's really important to think about what can you add to the conversation. Why are we there? What is the dialogue that we want to have? What is the personality? Your district has a personality on social media and it might be professional and removed and you know, we only say things about our upcoming calendar events. Hopefully it's that district is fun and inviting and they want to talk with us and engage with us. And that personality is something you can create on social media.
- [21:42]
John Brucato
Are you finding that communication specialists that are doing the job these days are having to learn so many different social media platforms and become experts in all these individuals softwares or how are they able to deal with that? Because, you know, you've rattled off a few already and I can only imagine there's a similar thread between a lot of them. But I mean it's six different logins and six different emails and passwords and interfaces you have to work with. So how has that been a challenge and how are communication specialists able to grapple with all these different channels to communicate?
- [22:17]
Melissa Bram
Well, I think the most important thing and as a newer communications professional, you might not have the confidence yet to be able to advise your administrative team. You know what, these are the platforms we need to be on. So you might be attracted to the latest flashy app. But I think what's really important is as you get more seasoned to know where your community is, because you don't need to be on all of them. You need to be on the right ones for the right audiences. And I think that's the level of expertise is a knowledge of what does each platform do and who's on there. So I can figure out which ones I should be on. I don't necessarily have to know how to use them all, but I need to know whether or not that one's right for my audiences and for my school district. And I think that's where the expertise comes in. There is Pew Research center does data on social media use and I'm always fascinated to see over. I forget the exact number, but over 80% of adults are on YouTube, over 70% are on Facebook, but it's only like 20, 22% that are on X formerly known Twitter. Interesting. And I can tell you less so in the last year or two, but I can't tell you how many times board members would get really worked up about something that was on Twitter about their district.
- [23:39]
John Brucato
And I kept thinking barely anyone saw it.
- [23:42]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, there's like nobody on there. So it's really important to be thoughtful about which platforms you're on and how you're using them rather than trying to Be an expert at all of them.
- [23:54]
John Brucato
Has social media allowed districts to reach those individuals that otherwise may be considered difficult to reach or non responsive? Because putting something in the paper is really only going to reach a certain segment. Putting something on Facebook, to your point, only going to reach a certain segment. So with all these myriad of different platforms, is that allowing districts to effectively communicate to the masses?
- [24:16]
Melissa Bram
It is, with a caveat always. As these different platforms keep tweaking their algorithms, it's getting harder and harder to just reach your audiences organically. Unless they're going out and searching for you, which most of them are not. It's getting harder and harder to reach people on those platforms. So that's why it's really important to think differently about how we approach our social content. To do each individual platform with purpose around what particularly interests the audience on that platform. And some districts are doing that really thoughtfully. There are, I want to say it was Highline Public schools out of Washington. They've got like a really thoughtful approach to Instagram and their content there is different than their content on Facebook and I think that's really important. So you're not, you're going to reach some of your harder to reach platforms or harder to reach audiences on these platforms if you're really thoughtful about the content and it's what they're looking for. But your mix has to be bigger than that. For example, a lot of our English learner populations, from the research that I've seen, a lot of them are still in radio. And I can't tell you how rarely I hear districts say we've got a strategy around our communications with local radio stations. People have forgotten about it because social media is so woo. But there's, you know, if you wanna reach those hard to reach populations, it's not necessarily the latest cool stuff. So sometimes classics like radio still work.
- [26:02]
John Brucato
Has the instant gratification factor presented a challenge for school districts? Because I think of TikTok or 1530 second videos. Instagram has reels, same idea. It's just instantaneous. Blast you with something and then move on to the next. How are districts able to adopt to that kind of culture of spreading the news and getting communications out there?
- [26:22]
Melissa Bram
Well, I think reels is fabulous and I confess I am a TikTok user.
- [26:29]
John Brucato
I haven't signed up yet, Melissa, and I'm holding out. I haven't done it.
- [26:33]
Melissa Bram
My favorite entertainment on commercial breaks. But you know what's engaging about them is they're usually fun, they're short, they make you smile, they make you Laugh. And the best communication is one that triggers an emotion.
- [26:48]
John Brucato
Sure.
- [26:49]
Melissa Bram
People remember how we make them feel, not necessarily all the things we told them. Right. And so places like reels or formats like reels with video can be a way to build emotional relationships with our audiences. So they are worth exploring and venturing into. And I think that that is somewhere that districts are going to continue to push themselves into with this younger generation that's coming up as our rising parents, our rising taxpayers. Those are places where they are and where their relationship with the relationship we have with them can be a little bit different. But it does take a lot of time to do well. And it also takes a lot of trust you to be comfortable to say, okay, building principle. Go ahead and do your weekly reel. Have fun with it, because that's what you're supposed to do there.
- [27:47]
John Brucato
Right? Right.
- [27:48]
Melissa Bram
I would say for school business officials, they'll like, think about, okay, budget, huge topic. Could I talk about, like, one teeny little piece of it for 30 seconds in a fun way and just release a quick reel? Hey, did you know that one of our sources of revenue is this grant? And here's what this grant supports your business Fact of the week. You know, like, it could be a nugget. It could just be a nugget. And I think that's what reels are.
- [28:18]
John Brucato
Yeah, that's great. So I'd like to shift our focus a little bit more to what maybe school business officials would be involved with communication. So first, I'd like to kind of explore crisis communication. When we think about crisis communication, it could be something as tragic as maybe a school shooting or a tornado rips through a school in Oklahoma and displaces families and students. But, you know, when we talked offline and kind of leading up to this episode, you said, well, there's a lot of other things that school districts need to deal with that would be considered a lot smaller of a crisis, like whether it's leadership changes or weather closures or something along that. How do districts, whether big or small, approach communications in these. In these scenarios?
- [29:01]
Melissa Bram
I think when they're doing them well, they really. So every day you could have some random thing because we're a people business, and every day people make mistakes, have accidents, things happen. So almost daily there's something that's going to happen. Districts can be ready for them if they have a plan, if they have a plan for communications around different crises. But I would say the ones that do, and we can talk more about that, but the ones that do it, well, when something happens, they think about the audience, who's directly affected but also who might be affected. So for example, something happened in a building. There was maybe there was a threat written on a bathroom wall or something like that. We temporarily evacuated the school, brought the safety people in, inspected everything. False alarm, bomb threat. Bomb threats happen all the time in schools and they might just send, sometimes they'll just send a letter home in students backpack. You know, it wasn't that big a deal but if you think about it, how many students these days have cell phones? I'm pushing really hard not to get my 12 year old a cell phone. All of her 12 year old friends have cell phones.
- [30:21]
John Brucato
You're the last holdout. I don't know how much longer it's going to last, Melissa.
- [30:25]
Melissa Bram
But best I'm trying, I'm trying so hard. But if you think about like how many of your 11 and 12 year olds these days have cell phones, they could very well be texting, mom, they evacuated the building. And yeah.
- [30:37]
John Brucato
How do you get ahead of the messaging in a scenario like that?
- [30:40]
Melissa Bram
Well, I think so there are a couple of ways. You can either do the, you know, the letter home at the end of day, which I think is a little too late. You can do the email. And parents email is kind of their number one information source in all of our research. They always turn to it. And so you could certainly do an email which a lot of school systems do. But if you had, let's imagine you had like a dedicated shadow page on your website and you only activate it in the event of an emergency. And the page said, okay, here's what we know about what's happened, you know, here's what we're going to be doing about it and here's when we'll follow up with you for information on any sort of crisis. And every time there was a scenario for your school, you could shoot out just a quick text message. Hey, parents, you know, students are safe. But we did have a little incident today. Visit the ABC page to learn more and you train them that this is the page they go to every time. And so I think it's about setting expectations for families about in the event that they get that random text from their student, where's the trusted source I can go to get the right information? And hopefully it's your website. But you might not want to have like, you know, crisis, random crisis news in your feed with the cool recital and the award. So you know, it's okay to have like a dedicated page where all the stuff goes, and that's where we send people to when something happens. So, you know, one of one of my favorite sayings in our industry is be the first and best source of information about your own organization. And it's hard when we're competing against smartphones, but we need to create patterns of behavior in our audiences that they know where to go for the most accurate and timely information, and we need to remind them. And so when these incidents happen, if we've got somewhere to send them, somewhere they know where to go, that can be really helpful. I will say, too, with crises, this is one where, depending on the level of crises, you may or may not include things on social media, but because of those algorithms, that's not hitting people as quickly or as instantly as you might think. So don't use social media, I would say, as like your primary notification system in a crisis, you still want to go with email and text. Parents and staff, too, by far prefer text for urgent situations over other methods. So if you haven't looked at your system for text messages, if you haven't done some sort of campaign recently to make sure all your parent contact information is up to date, that is a really important area. And when we hear constantly, that's how they want to hear about an urgent situation. Right.
- [33:34]
John Brucato
And that's direct access, too, to the parents in the community. You're not betting on an algorithm that may or may not relay your message in real time.
- [33:41]
Melissa Bram
Absolutely.
- [33:42]
John Brucato
You mentioned having a plan. What does a plan look like for a school district? Is it a flow chart of who does what and when? And as part of that plan, is training your parents on what to expect just as important?
- [33:55]
Melissa Bram
Absolutely. I would definitely say, you know, back to school time. And if you're in a state where you get winter weather right before the first, you know, big snowfall, the season hits, those are the two important times where I would say remind your families how you communicate in the event of a crisis situation. I always, when I worked in districts and I did print newsletters, we had a fall newsletter, and I always included something in there about just a reminder, you know, it'll go out on this website and this radio station, you know, let them know what to expect. You can also have sort of a standing webpage that says, here's what we do in the event of a crisis. And that might be a good place for like a video with your superintendent and your local emergency responder partner talking about, here's what we'd like parents to do in the event of a crisis. And here's why we need you to not come running to the school or you know, but having that information is definitely part of a good plan. But I would say every district has a district safety plan and usually there is some reference in it to this person will be the head, you know, the person who's going to be making public statements or something to that effect. But they usually don't go really deep down into actual practical communications. Who's going to be sending the email to the secretaries that gives them the statement they need to read? Who's going to be monitoring the social media for questions and comments and alerts. You really need a separate crisis communications plan as a complement to your district crisis plan. And in that really think about your if you are lucky enough to have a communications person or team, what are their roles in the crisis? And if you do scenarios with your emergency responders where you have them on campus on an off day or if you do tabletop exercises with your teachers, involve your communication staff in those because they really need to think through their steps too in that process and what their roles will be. You know, your communication plan might have template. We've actually got some of these resources in our online member resources, but template statements or 20 different common types of crises fill in the blanks so that your communications team is ready to go to send this out to families and to your staff. I know a lot of building principals have go bags or they have a flip chart with what to do in the crisis. Does your comms team have anything like that? They're probably going to need a WiFi hotspot and printed off list of tech passwords that they can't get into their drive for some reason. Maybe they need some equipment for a press briefing like a pop up podium and a pop up mic. So have they gone through those steps to be sure that you're ready to communicate in the event of a crisis? Most district crisis plans do not go to that level of preparation, but they could.
- [37:03]
John Brucato
Right? Right. So you just went through a lot to prepare for a crisis. Can you share an example of maybe a successful communication during a smaller crisis and in your mind what made it effective?
- [37:16]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, you know, I think thinking about some of the experiences that I've been through personally and we have more recent ones that are that our district members are going through. But I had one where I was in working in a particular school district and it was probably towards the end of the school year and a student as part of a senior prank decided to release mice into the school hallway during a bell A change bell. So there are tons of kids flooding into the hallway. And at first, you know, you would think maybe that would be funny. A lot of eek. While some students reportedly stepped on some of the mice, they were freaking out. Well, that triggers a lot of animal rights concerns. And so we were getting complaints from far outside of our community, people who didn't know who our students were, and saying some really horrible things about the students in general. The students in general, not just the one who released the mice, because of the reactions. And I think it's important in that scenario. What we had to prioritize was our local community. And I would say that's true of most crises when you're thinking about who you need to communicate with and maintain a relationship with. A lot of the biggest vitriol that you will experience will come from outside of your community, from people who don't know your families, who don't know your students. So we did, you know, email messaging out to our students, families. We posted a statement on our website. We did post. Post some information on social media as well, as I recall. But we had a. It's actually a reporter from a market outside of our area, and he got people on his own social media platforms and kind of got them riled up and talking about it. But we had to really stay focused on our local community. So we invited the local animal control officers with the police response units to come in and meet with some of our student leaders. And we didn't make that meeting public, but what we did was invite some local press to come meet with our students who are involved in that conversation and meet with the animal officer. And they talked about how they felt about the scenario and some service projects they planned. And the animal officer talked about sort of his perspectives on the issue. So in terms of dealing with crises, you know, of whatever size, whenever there's. There's a lot of outside negativity coming in, I think you really need to focus on your local reporters, your local community, your local partners, like that animal officer. I mentioned bringing them in to be a part of the conversation and solution. So that. That one was a challenging one for us. But I think we weathered it because we shared what we knew and we took advantage of some of those. Those partnerships as a way to share a message.
- [40:35]
John Brucato
And where does protecting the students mental welfare kind of fit into all of this? Because to your point, the. The Internet is very. Is largely unfiltered, and people from anywhere across the globe can weigh in right or wrong in a situation. And a lot of the time are weighing in in a negative capacity. So where does protecting the students kind of fit into all of this communications and making sure you're getting the message out?
- [41:01]
Melissa Bram
You know what I will tell you, it fits in and it's a massive challenge. NSPERA as an organization has been doing some advocacy with consortium of school networking to with platforms and with legislators to provide some more dedicated pathways for school systems to report issues on social media. Because it does, it filters in, it affects our students who are with us, you know, seven plus hours a day. And so it has been a challenge. So advocacy with your local elected officials and you know, reaching out to the platforms. I will tell you some of the platforms make it pretty challenging to talk to a human being when there are issues. So we've put together, we have a whole hot topic section on social media where we put together some instructions on how to report, how to try to claim, how to try to contest different things related to social media. And I think districts themselves have curriculum where they're trying to tackle some of this, whether, you know, it's digital literacy and online safety. But I think from a communications perspective, you know, we're trying to advocate, we're trying to research and do what we can to speak up for their needs because it is a challenge, It's a real challenge and not one that's been solved yet, unfortunately.
- [42:30]
John Brucato
Right, right. So when it comes to financial issues, whether it be budget cuts or school closures, you know, these can be particularly sensitive for school communities because most of the time schools are really the center point of a community and the hub. So when, you know, we just talked about some crisis communication, but when it comes to finances specifically, how should districts really communicate the challenges that are kind of presented in front of them in their communities?
- [42:56]
Melissa Bram
You know, I think something I always challenge SBOs to think about when I go out and do presentations is to think about financial community communications in the context of like if you've got that teenager who only says I love you when they want money, everybody's heard of at least one. You know, sometimes districts relationship with their community is like that. And we only go to them about financial stuff when we need them to vote in support of something or give us more money and we don't, we don't want it to be that way. That's not what we want the relationship to be. But unintentionally, that's how it turns out. So think about financial information as something we share year round. Familiarity breeds trust. And so if we can share financial Information in brief snippets throughout the year. Whether as like a quick facts graphic on social or in our parent E newsletter or a little video with the SBO on the website or you know, in the community newsletter. We start to sort of build a level of familiarity with district finances with the person who represents district finances and that starts to build trust. So think about ways to do that year round. And again, this is something where you could probably collaborate with a communications professional to think about, okay, how might I do this? What does that look like? Here are some, you know, at this time of the year I'm talking to the school board about such topic. How can I make that interesting to the community? Do you have any advice for me? So you know, think about those year round ways. The other thing I would say is that clear is kind and financial information is usually very confusing and complex. You know how many people spend a lot of time with their checkbook. So thinking about ways that you can translate the business speak into layperson language is really important. And one of the best way to do that is with stories people, they don't get emotionally attached to numbers unless it's a really bad number and they're angry about it.
- [45:19]
John Brucato
Right, right. Can relate to that.
- [45:22]
Melissa Bram
But you know, if you were going to talk about a new area of increased expense and you wanted to explain why those expenses were increasing, I wouldn't say, you know, well, students need more such and such. I'd say, you know, there's the student Sally that I ran into at the high school the other day and she was working on this project and we're going to be increasing expenses in this area to support students like Sally. You need to incorporate some storytelling and make those big, big numbers relatable to an individual human that other people can emotionally connect with. So I think that's an important part when we're talking about financial topics. And the other thing I would say is that particularly when we're talking about difficult financial topics, emotion has power. And so a lot of times the emotions that we trigger with financial information when it's bad is fear. So what we need to be doing is reducing fear. Sometimes that is just saying, we know this is a challenge, but here are the steps we're going to take to address it. Sometimes people just feel, okay, well at least they've got a plan that makes me feel better. Right. Yeah.
- [46:43]
John Brucato
You're not just saying we have this huge issue, stay tuned. Right?
- [46:46]
Melissa Bram
Yes, exactly. Like if there's a problem, don't let it come out of nowhere either. Shock is another negative emotion we experience sometimes with financial information if we haven't been doing that year round drip. So they understand, you know, this might be a challenge later. If it's a complete shock that's going to trigger a lot of negativity that.
- [47:07]
John Brucato
Goes hand in hand with your familiarity breeds trust, right?
- [47:10]
Melissa Bram
Absolutely, absolutely. So what we're trying to do is make them feel like we're confident. But there's a challenge and we're aware of it and we're working to solve it. And that's, you know, challenging news can be managed if it's not coming out of shock and fear that nobody is handling it.
- [47:34]
John Brucato
Do you find that communities are able to take bad news a little more easily when a district has been familiar with them and is proactive with their communication?
- [47:44]
Melissa Bram
Absolutely. I have always thought of trust as something that we build up and we stockpile for the bad times.
- [47:51]
John Brucato
You're building your capital there, right?
- [47:53]
Melissa Bram
Yeah. So we gotta build our trust capital through throughout the year. So when the bad stuff hits, it's going to take us down. But if we built up enough, it won't take us down all the way. If we haven't done any of that work, then we're going to be in crisis mode because we didn't have any trust built up. So yeah, you've got to work year round to build up some trust to help you through those difficult times that are inevitable.
- [48:14]
John Brucato
So let's say we've been talking about what you should be doing and hopefully everyone listening is heading down the path or has already. But what in the off chance that a district doesn't have that trust capital and maybe they have had some missteps with communications, how do they rebuild that trust with the community?
- [48:32]
Melissa Bram
Great, great question. I think one of the most important things, and this will usually take some nuance and some help to do, but you need to be able to acknowledge the seriousness of what happened, this happened and it caused harm. Don't be dismissive about it instantly. People aren't receptive if you're dismissive like, oh, it happened but it's fine, you.
- [48:56]
John Brucato
Know, yeah, don't worry about it, we'll be fine.
- [48:58]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, no, don't be dismissive of other concerns. Acknowledge the seriousness of what happened and then explain what happened. A lot of times districts get in trouble if they're like, if they instantly go to like, well, let me tell you how it wasn't our fault and it really was this, you know, and.
- [49:14]
John Brucato
People are, people don't like to hear that.
- [49:15]
Melissa Bram
They don't like to hear that. No. So acknowledge that it happened, that it caused harm, then explain what happened. And I think the important part of, like, tying that all together is sharing your commitment to change it, to fix it, to do better. What are you promising to prevent future issues? So, you know, we acknowledge it, we then we explain it, and we always promise, what are we going to do better in the future. And I think that there is a lot of willingness in the public to extend forgiveness if they feel someone is sincere in their apology. And it's that emotion that we're tapping into with that strategy.
- [50:01]
John Brucato
So it's really taking ownership of the issue, acknowledging it and presenting solutions rather than finger pointing and hoping that the problem will go away.
- [50:08]
Melissa Bram
Absolutely. You've got all the right answers.
- [50:13]
John Brucato
I'm just trying to make sure I get this because I'm sure I'll step in it one day, too. So I got to build my trust. So speaking of trust and just really the relationships with the community, we talked a little bit about doing that around finances, but let's kind of broaden the lens a little bit. How are districts able to really build that trust with the community? You said the familiarity is a really important piece, but are there any other steps that districts can take to really cultivate that trust and transparency with their community?
- [50:40]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, I think part of it is efforts to get to know your community, and a lot of that requires in person. Some districts will do traveling, like where they give out books. They'll go into neighborhoods in their community over the summer, and they'll give out books, and the superintendent will come and the mascot will come, and it's just like a fun, free in the community event, thinking about ways to get out to your community so you see them in their settings. A lot of districts get in the habit of trying to bring everybody into their schools, which is important. We want them exposed to the learning. But sometimes we need to go out where they are, Right? We need to go to their community centers, to their festivals. There are some superintendents who, in addition to doing, like, Facebook lives, they'll also go to the local big coffee shop where all the old timers go and just go and have chats. It does require some time, but I think that kind of effort shows that you value those other people, that you're committing some of your time to be with them. But these are also things that new communications can plan out for the year. And, you know, on our schedule, on our calendars, on our district calendars, we have all of the little events that are Happening in our, in our schools. Well, what if we had on there all of our community activities where we were going to be out and visiting within the community? Like, we can promote those too. They can be a part of our sort of holistic look at how we build relationships year round with our different publics and really get out there and build their trust and be seen with them. The other thing I would say too is that when having some way for people who are frustrated, annoyed, whatever it is, to share that a lot of times I was at a conference recently and a school business official or a school board member said, well, you know, how do we deal with like the angry person who comes up to me and just wants to tell me something? And you know, what I told him was sometimes just the act of listening is enough to defuse the situation. And you don't. Even if you know the person is wrong, you don't start with, let me tell you all the reasons why you're wrong. You start with, I'm listening, I hear you. I'm going to look into it and I'm going to get back to you. That can diffuse a lot of the tension. So practicing that sort of approach to people in your community who have problems. We're listening, we hear you. We're going to look into it. We're going to get back to you. I think is really important. Just having that philosophy about how we deal with people in our community is really important.
- [53:39]
John Brucato
You know, my wife taught me something really important. She told me, I don't always need you to come back with a response. Maybe I just want to vent and I want you to listen. And that is really paid dividends. So. So I've learned to not respond immediately. I'm just like, check to make sure. Like, do you want me to respond or is this. You need to kind of get this off your shoulders. Sounds similar.
- [54:00]
Melissa Bram
I absolutely do practice that sometimes where I will tell my husband, I don't want you to solve this, give me suggestions. I'm just venting. I just want you to listen.
- [54:10]
John Brucato
A life lesson.
- [54:11]
Melissa Bram
A life lesson. You came here and got a life lesson.
- [54:14]
John Brucato
So you talked about that kind of slow drip of information throughout the year to really create that consistency. But do you ever find districts in a position where the community feels they're over communicating? Like, thanks for all the information, but you know, time out. Like, I get an email from you every other day. I don't need to know the inner workings of how everything's going day to day. Talk to me about how maybe districts can really level, set and modulate their communication a little bit.
- [54:39]
Melissa Bram
That is absolutely true. I'll tell you another big feedback piece we get from all of our research is that people are overwhelmed. They want more information about their children's learning usually or about their school system. But at the same time they are getting inundated with emails and ads and things that they hear on the way to work. And then the work that they're doing, there's just. But what I think the key is targeting and personalization. There are great tools in some of our email, newer email technology platforms, some of our AI powered technology platforms that are really allowing us to be more personalized. So if I, as your member of your community could say I only want emails on X, Y and Z topics, there's software that will allow you to, when you're putting together a newsletter, tag, topically tag the different content in the newsletter. You can send out one newsletter to all your audiences and they'll each get a different experience because it'll just feature the content that was of interest to them. And in the same way, even with our emails, when we send them to staff, if we instead of sending it to all staff, we send it to affected staff and we make it clear on the subject line who's affected. So just finding ways to make everything more personalized, more targeted. Then when I get the email from the district and the same message from the building principal in an email and then another message of the same topic from the PTA and then I also get the text message which I'll tell you, this happens one day, I have 15 emails from my children's school systems between their two schools buildings in the district. If I had a way to say I only want this, this and this, and I only want it through this format, I would be so much more responsive and likely to read it because I'd be getting less. So just look for ways as you're talking to your technology vendors, your email, your websites, your apps, talk to them. How can we make this more personalized? And how can we give our recipients choice about what they receive and when they receive it? That's the goal that I'm pushing all districts towards.
- [57:05]
John Brucato
I love it. I love it.
- [57:06]
Melissa Bram
Do it in corporate, you can do it in association, eventually you can do it in district.
- [57:10]
John Brucato
Right? So winding down here, I have one last question for you and it's one that has troubled me for since I've been a school business official. So you know things are going well in your district. And by well, I mean no one's coming to your board meetings with pitchforks and all of that. But there's a lot of important things happening in the district and there's a lot of important decisions that are being discussed and being made by boards of education. But if nobody's there and nobody's tuning in, how do you reach your community? It can be so frustrating because you could be celebrating a lot of good things or we have a lot of capital projects coming up. But if nobody's tuning in, how do you know that you're, you're reaching those folks? Because you can't force people to read things. You had some great points on different kind of channels of social media, but maybe this is a question that may not have a perfect answer, but selfishly, how do I get to the community that may otherwise be tuned out if they perceive everything as going well?
- [58:04]
Melissa Bram
Oh my gosh. I can't tell you how many board meetings I went to where there was one to five people and it was like always the same. One to five.
- [58:11]
John Brucato
Yeah, we have the same guy. He's amazing. Mr. Louis. He comes every meeting. But unless there is some major uproar in the community, we don't really hear anything. I'm not trying to test the universe. That's good. But still we have things that we struggle with getting out to the community. It's like, oh, I didn't hear that. It's like, well, we've been talking about it at board meetings for months.
- [58:30]
Melissa Bram
You know, I think one of the most important things when we have information, usually I think we think about this is important for people to know. And so therefore I'm going to put it out. But we need to pair that with why would people care? We need to put it in a way that somebody would care. And if they're not going to care, there's no point in putting it out everywhere. They're not going to read it. They're not going to come to the meeting. I can't tell you how many budget related meetings I've seen where it's. Come learn about our budget. Like, who says, oh yeah, you know what? I want to go learn about a budget?
- [59:10]
John Brucato
Yeah, I have enough going on. Let me carve some more time out and go learn about school budget.
- [59:14]
Melissa Bram
Yes. But you know, if you could reframe that, like, okay, what does a person care about, you know, the. Maybe they care about the particular programs their kid is in. Come learn how we're going to enhance such and such program for students in ninth grade and send the ninth grade parents that email. So it's just thinking about the information we have to put out rather than why we think it's important and more why the recipient would think it's important. And then that's how we pitch it.
- [59:46]
John Brucato
So to your point earlier, making it more directly relatable.
- [59:49]
Melissa Bram
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We've got to change our subject lines and we've got to change our ad copy. Like, it's all got to be the what's in it for me? You got to tell them what's in it for me.
- [60:01]
John Brucato
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for talking to me, all things communications. I'm sure we could go on about some better practices and some different case studies, but I don't want to hold you up too much, but I know our listenership will get a lot of our conversation today. So thanks for sitting down with me.
- [60:16]
Melissa Bram
Happy to be here. And hopefully we'll see you in July next year in D.C. yep, absolutely.
- [60:23]
John Brucato
Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics on school business.