School Communication Best Practices Panel

This episode is a panel discussion on public education communication, which was recorded at the 2024 TASBO Summer Solutions Conference on June 18. The panel is moderated by TASBO's Tom Greer and includes: Bob Popinski, Raise Your Hand Texas; Lisa Losasso Jackson, We Go Public; and Patti Pawlik-Perales, TSPRA.

Chapters

• 0:15 Panelists
• 3:07 Texas School Finance Overview
• 11:16 Communicating School Finance and Value
• 17:35 Enrollment and Competition
• 21:39 Increasing Enrollment
• 25:11 About School Communicators
• 29:36 Do's and Don'ts
• 32:21 Words of Wisdom and Collaboration

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Thank you. We have a special TASBOcast off you this week, a first for our podcast, in fact. At the TASBO Summer Solutions Conference in Round Rock, we recorded a panel on public education and communication. Our panelists include leaders from Raise Your Hand Texas, the Texas School Public Relations Association, and We Go Public. From Raise Your Hand Texas, we invited Bob Upinski, the Senior Director of Policy there. This was his 11th legislative session helping schools and advocates better understand school funding and education policy. Lisa LoSaso-Jackson serves as the executive director of WeGoPublic, a statewide platform and campaign that promotes the benefits of pre-K through 12 public education. WeGoPublic shines a big spotlight on the amazing things happening in Texas independent school districts. And then Patty Pavlik-Paralis, enjoyed a diverse career in public education, serving school districts across South and Central Texas in educational television, communications, public relations, marketing, and service to education foundations. Last year, she was named Executive Director for TSPRA, the Texas School Public Relations Association. I'm Tom Greer, and this is TASBOcast.

UNKNOWN: 1:31

TASBOcast

SPEAKER_01: 1:37

Today in our panel discussion, Bob and others will help summarize public education funding and policy issues. Just give you a brief overview as much as we can right now and leading into the next session. From that, we'll talk about school finance and about public education in general and go over the core messaging. And we have excellent school communicators here to help us with that. One of the hot topics these days is student enrollment. And we're going to explore ways that public school districts and charter schools can adapt to new competition. And then we'll examine the value of school communication teams. And then we'll look at ways that individuals that work at school districts can champion public education directly. And this is one way that we hopefully will spur action in your own area so you know what the do's and don'ts are. And then we'll share words of wisdom and best practices in general for spreading the word about public education. Time remaining, there'll be a Q&A. After this panel, there'll be time to chat with the panelists if you have additional questions. So we'll start with you, Bob. Can you give us a brief overview of public ed funding and policy as it stands now?

SPEAKER_00: 2:57

I have the next three hours, right?

SPEAKER_01: 2:58

Oh,

SPEAKER_00: 2:58

yes. That's how it works. Now, I'll try to do it really quick because it is complicated and your different audiences are going to expect different things. It is a$60 billion system. There's 5.5 million students that we educate. 90% of all students go to a public school. There's 371,000 teachers and about the same in support staff and administration. So it is a big system with over a thousand school districts. When you're talking about public education policy, it's more than school funding though, right? There's about a thousand pieces of legislation filed every session, a thousand. That deals with public school funding, it deals with charter schools, it deals with property tax rates, but it also deals with curriculum and assessment and accountability and board governance for all of your board of trustees. It gets into everything that TASBO does for you. About 10% of those bills pass, so about 100 bills of those pass, unless it was last session, right? Not too many important bills passed last session, and we can kind of get in But so how do you explain school funding to all your different audiences? And there are a few, right? Raise Your Hand Texas, which was founded in 2006, was basically founded by Charles Butt to elevate public education and try to explain things better. So we came up with a lot of explainer videos. We do an across the lawn when the legislative sessions going on to try to kind of put out a 10,000 foot level of how school funding works. And it is complicated. And so I have a video for you later on that'll help underscore everything I'm about to say. So if you get lost, there's a two-minute video that'll come back and hopefully solidify some things. But school funding basically starts with the basic building block of the basic allotment. You've probably heard this quite a bit over the last couple of sessions because since 2019, it has not been increased. That basic allotment is$6,160 You add on to that. You add on to that based on student characteristics and district characteristics. And depending on what type of kids you have and what type of school district you are, on average, what we have to fund our schools is about$10,000 per kid. Now, that's operating expenses. That's what you can pay on your teachers. That's what you can pay on your staff. That's what you can pay on your programs. There is some more in there. There's some federal funding, and we'll get into that. And there is some INS or debt service funding. And so when you hear, this is what gets complicated, you will hear various numbers from various people. Right now, the leadership team over at the Capitol is using a$15,000 number. That is an all-in number. That includes federal ESSER funds. That was one-time money. That includes free and reduced lunch price that goes to your kids that qualify for that program. It goes to the Texas Education Agency's operating budget. It goes to debt service. So that's$15,000 all in. But what is actually school districts and school boards can spend on their kids and their teachers is roughly about$10,000. And I want to underscore that roughly because that hasn't changed in quite some time. If you want to increase that basic allotment, you need to add about$1,400 to the system right now. So just in this conversation alone, I have thrown a lot So how do you explain this to your general public? How do you explain it to your parents? How do you explain it to your community? How do you explain it to your board members? You have to have various messaging throughout it all. And that's what we tried to do with this video that we're going to show right now. It's just a simple two-minute video. We have two more. This is how the state gets its money and how it funnels it down to school districts. But we have another one. Once it gets down to school districts, where does all that money go? And surprise, It's mostly staffing and teachers. And then there's a third video out there that you can go to our YouTube channel on at Raise Your Hand Texas that talks about how we compare to other states. And it's not well, right? We are about$4,400 below the national average in per-student funding. So with that, I'm going to show you a two-minute video. Hopefully this explains things a little better than I did. And then we'll see if you have any questions at the end.

SPEAKER_01: 7:32

All right. Thanks, Bob.

SPEAKER_02: 7:40

Public education system in Texas is huge and critical to the future of our state. Smart planning and adequate funding are essential to making the system work for each and every Texan. Where does the money for public education come from? Let's break it down. First, think of funding schools like filling up a glass of water. The water in the glass represents the amount of money the Texas legislature allocates to educate each student. The water is sourced from two primary pictures. The first is school district revenue generated by local property taxes. The second is state funds, which are generated by things like sales taxes, business taxes, and lottery proceeds. The water glass has the ability to shrink or grow. But many people are surprised to learn that the size of a Texas school district's water glass, or how much money is available for and spent on day-to-day school operations is decided almost entirely by the state legislature, not school boards or superintendents. Under state law, schools receive a certain amount of per-student funding based on specific student demographics and district characteristics. Funding formulas designed by the legislature provide school districts with general operating funds, most of which cover salaries for teachers and staff.

UNKNOWN: 9:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 9:11

Other parts of the funding formula are designated for specific priorities like career and technical programs, early childhood education, and more. While the state legislature decides how big the water glass is, how much money the state actually contributes is contingent on the amount of local property taxes generated by a school district. In our complex school funding system, when local property values go up and tax collections increase, local schools do not receive more funding. Instead, the state simply pours less water into the glass, even though more state funds were originally budgeted and intended for public education. But what happens if school district revenue generated by local property taxes is able to fill the whole glass? more water is poured than the glass size can hold. The state collects those overflowing funds in a separate water pitcher that holds general revenues for the state. So when a school district's property tax revenues go up, those dollars are not always reinvested back into our schools. Instead, the state uses its newfound billions to pay for other items in the state budget, or simply holds on to the extra revenue. That doesn't seem right. Tell Texas lawmakers money intended for Texas public schools should stay in Texas public schools. All

SPEAKER_01: 10:52

right, very good. So I'm going to turn it over to our communicators. How do you spread the word about the value of public education and the funding?

SPEAKER_03: 11:02

So our Teespring members, school communicators, webmasters, PR folks, television production folks, foundations across the state, try to take these types of concepts and well done. That's beautifully done video. I love it. It helps make everything more understandable and a little bit easier to digest. We try to share knowledge that's already produced and just keep things simple and make them bite-sized and relatable to our communities and tell them why it's important to understand this and why it's important for them to share that in a positive way in our own communities and reach out to people in their churches, in the grocery store, in their little community groups. And our Teespring members do that, sharing alongside folks like Raise Your Hand Texas, We Go Public, and using all the tools available to them, whether it's social media, newsletters, different messaging via online services, just the website, just a wealth of ways that we try to share those messages. One of our partners in that is Lisa at We Go Public. Yeah, thank you, Patty. And with the work that Teespr does, it works kind of hand in hand with what We Go Public does. Again, kudos to an outstanding video. I already have a list of some people I'm going to share that video with. So that's the point of doing a video like that is that you can readily share it with someone when when you are trying to answer a question that is challenging like this one. I think one of the critical things that We Go Public does is make sure that we fill that bucket up inside of a person as to why they should care. Why do you care about school funding? Why do you care if there's not enough funding for your schools? And we start by doing that by sharing the great things that are happening in the So when you see the successes, when you see the programs, when you see the outstanding stories, when you see all of the amazing things that are happening in your neighborhood school, you don't want that to go away. And so we really stay in that space of promoting those positive stories. But it's not just us that can do that. It's partners, but really those who are working within a school district as well as the parents in the community. Knowing what great things are happening in your schools and sharing one or two of those every once in a while, that can go a long way, right, where it becomes a part of the community. And that's a lot of the work that we do.

SPEAKER_01: 13:47

And how do you go deeper into leveraging the community? I know it's an essential part, correct, of Public Edge is an essential part of the community. Patty, how would you further convey that to the community? I

SPEAKER_03: 14:02

think about, Tom, I think about Rooted Texas as another organization that developed at the San Antonio area as a result of a core group of families in one specific school district who knew the value of their schools and wanted to help and that story. And that is exactly what happens. Like your schools, you think about the schools that your children are in, you know, the schools, you know, the teachers, you know, the activities, you know, the other children and the other families, and just how important it is for your children to get a great education and to have opportunities extended to them that maybe you've seen in other districts that you haven't tried in your district. I think about the rocketry program and how it's launched successfully in other districts. And now it's, you know, you know, coming home to different places. That's important for folks to see and understand, know that they have ability to help provide in the essential development of the whole child because these children oftentimes come out, come back to the community, live in the community, stay with us, support the economy. And we want them to have the best education possible to bring that home to us and even to go out into the greater good, the greater world and provide that as well. Public education is the essential Yeah, and to pick up on what Patty's saying, you know, in some ways it's just that reminder, whether it's reminding your network or your friends or your family or when you're in a conversation, that when we're talking about the child, we're talking about that child's potential and that our public schools are that path for that child's potential and our job as a community is to help them. is to wrap ourselves around that child. And public schools do that so well. When I think about public schools, especially in Texas, you know, it's very, when you think about athletics, right, in Texas, not just Friday Night Lights, not just football, but all of our athletic programs and how the community comes together. The community comes together from everywhere to cheer on these students. And that's sort of that feeling when we think about just their academic path. that we're here rooting for them. And I think reminding ourselves that we all have that role and to share those moments and to remind our community about that. The other thing that comes to mind is one of my kind of, I don't know, sort of heartwarming experiences that I have when I go on a road trip or I'm driving somewhere. And my husband and I always note the same thing. When we drive through a small or rural community, it's so much fun because nine times out of 10, you're going to see the school's logo everywhere. You're going to see the colors everywhere. You're going to see all that excitement. And that's just another example of how our public schools are the epicenter of the communities. And so as a community, we all can go forward sharing these great things to ensure that we're valuing our public schools when it comes to these issues like funding.

SPEAKER_01: 17:13

And public schools are in every community. We have to serve all comers. But there is competition. So let's talk competition. Schools funding in Texas depends on average daily attendance. We're now in an era where public education enrollment is shrinking or stagnant in places, partly due to competition from private and home schools. Bob, I'm going to pose this to you. What are other reasons for shrinking attendance and how does that impact schools that see shrinking attendance? And how does that impact the quality Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 17:49

And before we get to the exact reasons of enrollment decline in some districts, last school year and the next two school years, the most important thing for schools is going to be school funding, right? Because of inaction by the legislature. But how many of you can actually pinpoint the exact reason why your school district has adopted a budget deficit or is cutting back programs? It's a myriad of issues, right? It's not only just enrollment decline or inflation. or the federal ESSER funding running out. But it's, hey, we're identifying more special education kids and we are getting into the weeds of like things that are happening with the Comptroller's Property Values Study and SHAR's funding. So it's all of these, but one of the biggest things that's impacting school districts across the state is inflation and enrollment decline. Back prior to COVID, you could say on a regular basis that every year public schools in Texas grew by about 80,000 kids. And you kind of knew where that area was. It was like the I-35 and I-10 corridor, right? We knew where those 80,000 kids were going. It was about 100 school districts in the state. What if I were to tell you the last school year, student enrollment is up by only 13,000 kids. But if you look at those numbers, the decline in traditional independent school districts, it's actually down 6,000 students But if you look at the enrollment increase in charters, it's up over 18,000 students. So we have a shift going on. Charter schools are now a$4 billion program in our state. We're seeing increased enrollment, and that is part of it. So where are you getting enrollment from from the early grades as well? And then obviously there's the kind of a national trend of kind of just birth rates are down and in general as well. So we're not having the population that we once had here in Texas. So it's all in. And we are one of only a handful of states that funds our schools based on average daily attendance. Average daily attendance is really hard to fund on for school districts because you have to do it. You have to guess at how many kids are going to show up every school year during the summer. How many kids are going to come on on an average daily attendance basis? You're going to prepare for your budget based on kind of estimates that your school district gives. How many teachers am I going to staff up? How many bus drivers? What does my cafeteria staff need to look like? What programs can I offer? And if you're off just by a little bit, that could make a huge impact because every kid on average is about, what, 10,000 So if you're off by 10 kids, that's$100,000 not going into your school district to provide for those programs. So enrollment is important. And so there is a big push over the last handful of sessions to now fund our schools on an enrollment basis so school districts can better plan and better staff up for the school year.

SPEAKER_01: 21:09

Hey, thanks, Bob. That's very interesting. So what can districts do or have done to help increase enrollment?

SPEAKER_03: 21:19

So our school comms folks work closely with our superintendent, our leadership, teachers, principals, various departments just like yours to help spread the message that we have options, we have opportunities, we have choices for students at all levels. I think a about the pre-K program and the kinder program. I think about Spanish immersion programs coming in at that level. We try to be welcoming and appealing. We try to provide customer service and be supportive of parents. I can tell you numbers of stories, and I know you guys know this well, of student or parent situations or crisis situations where staff step in. They provide hygiene items. They provide clothing. They provide backpacks filled with food on the weekends. There's just so many ways that districts provide support, but also provide educational options during the day. I think about our PEMS program and our finance departments who will register kids using the new online system. That can be a little bit daunting, but they sit and that's how they get to know their families and their communities and their schools. They sit and they go through the software with them and get them registered. That's just one of the ways that communications, communicators will work with our various departments to help them spread the message about the good work that they're doing and in turn help provide customer service to our families. And to pick up to where Patty's talking about the work that the communications departments do, you know, with any product, as you are all consumers, you're going to be marketed to, right? So school districts are just the same. And when we look at things like enrollment and registration, there are very specific tactics that are really critical to increasing enrollment in schools. And some of those tactics include having a very specific campaign where you're making it very clear to your community and your parents when registration is, how to register, making it very easy on the website to find your registration page, to find where your bus routes are. Some parents might be looking at schools based on the ease of getting their child there. So if they're digging around on a website to try to find information, that is not helping the enrollment process. So those are some of the tactics that we can look at as communicators and also as school districts. Are we making it as easy as possible for our parents to register their children? And then at the same time, elevating those stories and the excitement around registration, I think of some Some districts and schools do some absolutely adorable things around registration where they have kindergarten and pre-K signing days. If you've ever seen a picture that is any cuter, I would love to know where the kiddos are signing there, you know, that they're agreeing to go to kindergarten or pre-K and there's a big backdrop behind them. Some very creative ways that make that really special, not only to the family, but to the community and celebrating it. So we look at tech. And then you look at spotlight and spotlight those successes.

SPEAKER_01: 24:44

Lisa, that's so cool. You'll have to send me that. We need those photos. That sounds great.

SPEAKER_03: 24:48

Adorable.

SPEAKER_01: 24:49

So both you and Patty have a long distinguished career as school communicators. Tell us about the school communications team and what are their core functions?

SPEAKER_03: 25:02

So I will tell you that your work as our work has grown over the past few years, right, since COVID. I think we are doing more than ever before. And part of that for communications teams is just sharing information, communicating what needs to be shared with the community, whether it's about enrollment or first grade activities or teacher night, whatever it is, it's communication. We try to market and increase enrollment in our schools, market the good things that are happening in our schools. We try to create some brand management opportunities and shout out stories of successful students and teachers and the things that they're doing right in our very own communities to really make education great for their kids. We deal with crisis communications more than ever before. We're messaging daily. You know, it's not just one event that is a school crisis anymore. There are daily school crisis that are stemmed from weather. We're about to probably experience some weather in the southern part of our state and our communicators are going to be working to get the messaging out. It's summer, but we have summer programs rolling and different things like that. Bus messaging, all of those things help support communications. And then we just collaborate with different departments like you to try to get your messaging out. Maybe you're in the transportation department and you need drivers or you had a bus breakdown or something's running late. Maybe your finance department came to TASBO and got one of the awards at TASBO and you want to share that out. So just lots of ways that we like to communicate with various departments. We Go Public has this unique sort of place in all of this because we get to see the bird's eye view of many districts all at once because we're amplifying as many districts who are part of We Go Public as possible, right? And so one of the major elements that makes that successful is the school district communication team. There is absolutely no way, and the superintendent in some districts, because there's not even a communications person there, right? But we view communications teams as gatekeepers to everything. They know how to get a message or information to the right person or the right department in a school district. They also know how to get that back out to the world, whether that means on their own social channels or with the media, or even if it was us. If I put a message out and said, we would love to have a great story about your bus drivers because we're doing a big feature this month on bus drivers. They know where to go get that information, those photos, and shoot it back to us. So that's a very efficient way of us all collaborating together to really tell those big stories. So communications teams are absolutely integral in making sure that Those good stories are also getting out while managing all the other things that they have to do.

SPEAKER_01: 28:09

But going directly to public education employees, what can they do to support public education directly?

SPEAKER_03: 28:18

So I will just say, spread the positive word when you're in the grocery store and somebody stops you in the cereal aisle and they start talking about a specific employee, a specific teacher, be positive. If you can't share, please don't share. Say yes and let me tell you, but let me tell you what the Rocketeer program is doing. Have you seen what Ms. Johnson is doing? Just talk up your public schools and your teachers and your communities and share the positive because oftentimes people know it, but It's nice to remind them about the good that is actually occurring. Absolutely. And if it comes down to just, you always have the same three things that you always talk about, that's okay. You might talk about the caring teachers or the amazing program or just being a part of a great culture. And that's what you always say. That's fine. That's actually pretty pro if you do it that way.

SPEAKER_01: 29:10

Bob, do you have any comments? What should they do and what should they don't?

SPEAKER_00: 29:16

Yeah. So we have a great staff at Razor Antics. is we have 12 regional advocacy directors that do just this. We want to get out and spread the word. And they love this next issue of just get out and vote, right? So if you ever need help with just get out the vote messages, call one of our regional advocacy directors. But first and foremost, every election, whether it's a primary or a runoff or a general or a school board meeting, it's a public education election. So know your issues, know where the positions are for every one of those members. But I'm going to steal this from the Texas Ethics Commission because it became an issue this past primary and in this past election season. No matter how enthusiastic you are, the Texas Election Code prohibits the use of school resources to produce or distribute political advertising, including email. So be careful with the school resources. Be enthusiastic, but do it on your own time. You can encourage students and staff and parents to vote. You can You can plan field trips to polling locations to teach students the required TEKS and civics duty. That's appropriate. But don't use school resources to do the other things like political advertising. If you

SPEAKER_03: 30:35

have questions about that, your school comms person will know the answer and they can review your material and let you know if you're good or not and help support you that way. And I think the only thing what not to do is the question just to not speak publicly. And that means also on social channels about your school or teacher or policy or anything like that. Speaking poorly about that publicly does so much damage and it's hard to repair that. So we as ambassadors of public schools have to be mindful of that type of activity or even liking something that's negative can also be a reflection of what your school district actually thinks because you are that ambassador for your district.

SPEAKER_01: 31:21

Is there any like common examples that's kind of a gray area that worries a lot of public education employees? Like, can I do this? I

SPEAKER_03: 31:30

would say, you know, a lot of times we're in bond situations season and people are worried about advocating for the bond just be factual with your information when you're having conversations be factual you can share school district promotions because they typically have their publications their graphics reviewed so that they stay in compliance with the law as Bob mentioned I think that would be the safest thing and again if you have questions go to your school district comms folks and let them help you direct you as needed

SPEAKER_01: 32:03

So I'm going to start with the final words of wisdom and any final thoughts. And then if there's other ways that you see collaboration between school comms and school business officials and operations, let us know. But we'll start with you, Bob. Any final thoughts?

SPEAKER_00: 32:24

There are so many great organizations out there. There's three right here today. TASBO really helps out in trying to get the message across. And and get you the information so that you can distill it in your district. So use the sources that are out there that are giving you the information. Every district on top of that is not only a part of TASBA, but some of the bigger districts are a part of other associations like TASA-TASB and the Texas School Alliance and the Fast Growth School Coalition. There's tons of organizations that have different messaging. So know where your school stands and what organizations your school's a part of so that you can help out with that messaging. Patty,

SPEAKER_03: 33:03

I will just add that united messaging in your community through your social media, your personal social media, your liaison, your churches, your cities, your community at large. and the wonderful things that are happening through some promotions and some new activities. So look for that in about a week. In about a week, it's coming out. Yes, absolutely. And what's exciting about that is that we've streamlined things. We've provided all the resources a district needs to take it to the next level. We would be amplifying also to what your district is doing. And when you think about it, when you think about the power that we have in the state of Texas, if we are all united, under a common message, I always say, we'll crush it. Simply put, we'll crush it because we are absolutely enormous in size and also with all the amazing things that are happening. So great things to come.

SPEAKER_01: 34:17

And really, since all communities need schools and public education, at the end of the day, we're all in this together. We want kids to safely go to school and be educated and have a positive life from Texas public schools. I want to thank this panel. Please take a screenshot of their websites, their name and websites. They have a lot of great content. And if you have any ideas, you know, share them, reach out to them. And then also, you know, give a thanks to your school communications departments. It's a hard job. Sometimes it's not. It's a thankless job. It can be very hard. Crisis communications can be very stressful. So Reach out to them, collaborate with them, and steer everybody in the same direction.