WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN TALKING ABOUT COMMUNITY SCHOOLS

A Communications Toolkit for Community School Advocates

This toolkit responds to the overwhelming, need among community schools leaders and advocates guide that describes various ways to to have a guide that helps inform advocates, partners and school leadership on the various ways to address the media, state and local elected officials and the public. This toolkit will help drive partnerships, encourage advocacy, and engage more community members, and student families in the work of unifying the community to work together for student success with educators.

Community School Messaging Toolkit

TIPS & TRICKSThroughout this toolkit, look to this right hand bar for important Tips & Tricks, examples and guidance that you can use to implement this messaging toolkit.

YOUR GUIDEThe toolkit is intended to help cultivatepartnerships and increase media coverage of thework you do;• Help you tell the story of community schools;• Help provide a strong messaging platform for

tough questions about community schools; • Help increase awareness of the multi-decade

track record of community schools improving achievement, empowering students and families, and strengthening neighborhoods

CONTEXTThe nation is facing a serious education crisis in today’s schools. The first challenge lies in identifying underlying problems keeping students from learning. Some of the issues facing schools today include student engagement, poverty, family issues, lack of technology at home, misbehavior, lack of parent involvement and poor student health. The community schools strategy is the solution to the education crisis. Community schools help to successfully address these social issues by serving as a conduit to helping families. Educators partner with doctors, nurses, social workers, community agencies, businesses, higher education, and others to provide the comprehensive academic and non-academic supports that meet each student’s unique needs and taps his/her unique talents. Counseling and health care for some. Food and shelter for others. GED and job training for community residents. Quality instruction, enrichment, and extracurriculars for all.

Read community school overview

TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroduction to Community School Messaging • New Tagline and Why • Elevator Speech• Talking Points• Why These Messages

Crafting a Message • Your Message Matters • How to Use Messages • Why These Messages

Share Your Community School Stories • Crafting Your Narrative • Message vs. Narrative • Problems and Barriers • Shared Values • The Language • The Solution • The Impact • The Ask

INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNITY SCHOOL MESSAGINGMessaging you can use to tell your school story

Community Schools Messaging

New Tagline for the Coalition

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Why New Tagline?

The Coalition has intentionally revised its tagline to highlight the word partnering, one of the most distinctive aspects of community schools. Partnerships help deepen relationships between educators and community advocates. Partnerships are the vehicle for learning in community schools. “Learn and Thrive” are words that emphasize the importance of student’s continuous growth academically and non-academically.

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Elevator Speech

A Community School is a public school – the hub of its neighborhood, uniting families, educators and community partners; providing all students with top-quality academics, enrichment, health and social services, and opportunities to succeed in school and in life.

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Talking Points • Partnerships for better learning. With community partners, schools offer

strong academics, health and social supports, and enrichment opportunities that all students need but often aren’t getting. Learning improves when these needs are met and when teachers can focus on teaching.

• Hyper-local. Local decision-making and accountability, responding to the unique needs of each community and building community bonds. Creatively bringing together all of a community’s assets to support public education.

• Proven approach, updated for a new era. Fifty years of evidence show that higher student achievement, more community support and engagement, and vibrant neighborhoods where schools are the hub. Community schools embody core American values: fairness, opportunity, community-driven, local control and accountability, parent and family empowerment.

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Why you need an Elevator Speech and Talking Points?

Every advocate for community schools should be prepared at a moment’s notice to talk about community schools to a reporter, legislator, community member or stakeholder. The elevator speech is a clear brief message or commercial aboutyour organization typically about 30 seconds long.

The talking points invite discussion and provide support to why community schools are the kind of public schools that families want and children deserve, where students are safe, loved, andchallenged

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How can the field use the messaging?• Use in interviews when speaking with local TV and print

media • Use the messaging to talk about community schools in

presentations, speeches and community roundtables • Make sure stakeholders and supporters use the language in

their promotional materials • In meetings and discussions with legislators • On your organization’s website and social media graphics

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USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO PUSH MESSAGING

Why Social Media is a Powerful Tool for Spreading Community School Messaging?Social media is a powerful tool that is changing the way people absorb information, mobilize for advocacy, and raise awareness about issue campaigns. Within minutes, organizations and individuals can amplify a singular message and spread it quickly through social media. Community schools can benefit from how quickly information can be shared and how much their follower’s networks can see their posts and activities.

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Why Social Media is a Powerful Tool for Spreading Community School Messaging?

• Twitter is a great resource for quick updates (140 characters or less). Twitter has 313 million total monthly engaged users so be sure to post impactful and linkable content, photos or short video clips.

• Facebook has over 1.86 billion monthly active users, so be sure to create compelling content free of character limit restrictions. Posts should be used to share quotes, articles, longer video clips and photos.

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CRAFTING A MESSAGEWhat is a message and how do we use it?

FRAME THE CONTEXT Messages are a way for you to:• Frame your work through values • Engage hearts and minds • Tell people a story • Share both challenges and solutions

Compelling messages follow Head, Heart, Ask:• Head: use common sense supported by data. • Heart: tell stories with emotional content• Ask: for partnerships, for funding, for leadership, for

support.

T I P S & T R I C K S

To tailor your organization’smessages, interview yourstakeholders, staff, students, parents, community pillars and partners to incorporate their vision.

Asking their opinion will help strengthen your case and increase the likelihood they will agree with and share your messages.

HOW TO USE MESSAGES Tap into shared cultural values. Some values can vary culture to culture. What may be a key cultural value in Europe such as individual expression, may not resonate with an audience in Asia. However, there are many values shared across cultures, such as education and caring for family. Use shared values to anchor your messages and connect with listeners’ emotional core. • Examples: respect, self-determination, empowerment, etc.

Consistently repeat your messages and pepper them into all your communications. • Messages used on your website should parallel messages used

in your elevator pitch and social media and so on.

Always remember to include your call to action. • Tell advocates, partners, and legislators what you need them to

do. For example: Visit our website, partner, support our mission.

DO’S & DON’TS

Messages Do • Inspire interest • Invite people in • Make a connection • Gear up for more

information later

Messages Don’t • Explain a process • Take the place of an

accurate description • Convey complicated ideas • Use jargon

WHY USE THESE MESSAGES? The current education reform framework is limiting.

Bring the issue to life. Partners and advocates want statistics and real-life stories and to make the issue more tangible.

Less “sky is falling,” more solutions. Partners and advocates want solutions and positive language. They do not want to be overwhelmed by seemingly impossible challenges.

Make the connections explicit, not implied. Partners and advocates want to see how the community school strategy is impacting students throughout their lives. Connecting to issues such as health, family and education is motivating. Doing so also broadens the conversation beyond limiting and polarizing topics like public vs. charter schools.

SHARE YOUR STORYBuilding and sharing a narrative that will resonate with your audience

CRAFTING YOUR NARRATIVE

What is a narrative...Your narrative is your story. It is the foundation for your content, whether that content is focused on partnership appeal or an elevator pitch to a stranger at a conference.You should adjust your narrative based on your focus, the

audience you are speaking with and the appeal you are making.A narrative should:• Illustrate your opportunities and challenges• Speak to your audiences’ shared values• Include proven and effective language• Connect your cause to a solution• Highlight the impact of your work• End with a call-to-action

MESSAGE vs. NARRATIVEBefore crafting your narrative, it’s important to understandthe difference between a message and a narrative.A message…Is a short, simple idea that helps to communicate yourpoint and, when combined with other messages, forms a narrative.A narrative…Is your story. A combination of several key messages,tailored for the person you are speaking to, a narrative is the story that drives your schools mission.

DEMONSTRATE CHALLENGES AND BARRIER OPPORTUNITIES

There are multiple challenges facing students and many barriers to providing the services they need physically and mentally to remedy those problems.

Every school and community will have their own specific challenges and barriers, and sharing those with potential supporters is important. However, remember not to dwell on the negative, rather pivot the conversation towards the positive work your school is doing.

EXAMPLE:

Barrier: “The Geography of Chronic Absenteeism reports that in approximately 500 school districts, 30 percent or more of their students missed at least three weeks of school in 2013-14..”

Reframe: “The community school strategy use of hyper-localism helps respond to absenteeism, by creatively bringing agencies on site to remove barriers that keep kids from coming to school.”Together, we can empower!

SHARED VALUESValues are the foundation of our beliefs.

• Values connect the heart to the head, bringing emotionalcontent to decision making.• Facts and arguments that support our values can persuadeus to take action.

While some cultural values vary depending on the region,shared values across all cultures include:

• The importance of health• Caring for family• The value of education

EXAMPLES:

Below are a few examplesof shared values yourorganization can use to beeffective in framing support:

• “The community schools strategy supports students and teachers by given them time and space to master the more challenging academics they need to thrive.”

• “The community schools strategy provide an environment where students are safe, loved and challenged.”

• “Community schools offer an approach that builds on core American values to meet 21st-century needs..”

Do’s & Don'ts

Do’s

• Short, relatable language• Optimism• Solution-based language• Empowerment • Being part of a community• Culture is fluid• Immediate action• Demonstrate impact andoutcomes

Don'ts• Jargon• Fear-based language•Politicizing the issue • Assigning any blame• All inputs without outcomes

TIPS & TRICKS

It’s very important toexplain challengeswithout overwhelmingyour audience. We need tobalance the urgency with constructive arguments.Use this slide for quicktips on the “Do’s and Don’ts” of communicating with your audience.

HIGHLIGHT YOUR WORK AS THE SOLUTION

An effective overarching mantra for your narrative is: “Putting students at the center ”

RATIONALE• Community schools listen to students concerns and aspirations, and responds to their life circumstances by incorporating partnerships within the fabric of the school• Offers three kinds of opportunities: powerful learning, integrated health and social supports, and authentic family and community engagement. • “Put the power in the community hands” also has a double-meaning; it’s about empowering the community to become leaders and activists for their schools.

CORE MESSAGESWe believe every student should encounter community schools that are:

• Partnering for better learning• Hyper-local• Pushing the fact they are a proven approach,

updated for a new era

FRAME THE SOLUTIONEXAMPLES

Some of the most common problems facing students are underlying issues such as difficulties with self-esteem, depression, anxiety or trauma. The community school strategy explicitly uses partnerships to offer health and social support. In Nashville, Whitsitt Elementary partnered with Whirlpool to provide washer and dryers to clean students clothes. In California, CherrylandElementary has 43 partnerships with outside agencies, businesses, and faith programs to address trauma care for students.

Partnerships for better learning

By building deep relationships with community partners, schools are able to offer strong academics,

health and social supports, and enrichment opportunities that all students need but often aren’t

getting.

FRAME THE SOLUTION

EXAMPLES

Schools assess the needs of their school and use the community school strategy to provide hyper-local educational change and reform strategy that mobilizes community assets to improve outcomes for students, families, and neighborhoods. In these places, diverse stakeholders work to solve problems with local assets.

For example, in South Paterson, the New Jersey School District is providing individual and group counseling services to almost three dozen Syrian refugee students thanks to partnerships with service providers. Paterson has a long history of helping immigrants.

Hyper-local

Local decision-making and accountability, responds to the unique needs of each community and builds

community bonds. .

FRAME THE SOLUTIONEXAMPLES:

A review of history shows, however, that for more than a century, schools been called on to play an important role in addressing health and social needs due to their strategic ability to reach children and families. The extent of the medical services provided was so broad that sometimes even minor surgery was performed in schools. For example, in New York City in 1906, when the parents of large numbers of children who needed their tonsils and adenoids removed could not afford carfare to the nearest dispensary, several volunteer physicians performed this surgery on 83 children at Public School 75.

Proven approach, updated for a new era

Fifty years of evidence show that higher student achievement, more community support and

engagement, and vibrant neighborhoods where schools are the hub. Community schools embody

core American values.

IMPACT STATEMENTSMake partners an active part of the solution.

Examples:

Your support will ensure…

• Students will master the more challenging academics they need to thrive in an increasingly complex world;• Students have the opportunity to engage, in real-world projects that make learning more relevant, and open the door to future opportunities;• And where partners play a role by working with the staff to shape the school’s priorities

EXAMPLE:

“With your support over the past year, our school has coordinated and linked an array of support and opportunities that have helped us to create _____ opportunities to ____students.

MAKE THE ASKMaking the call to action is the most important element of your message - but it is often excluded.

• Lead with the conviction that change can happen now• Position their support as part of the solution by describingthe impact their partnership• Speak to transforming individual lives and also broadersocietal change• Highlight connections to issues such as health, family andEducation

REMEMBER: MESSAGESWORK IF YOU USE THEM

Use the messages

• Find the voice to represent your school• Get and stay on message• Have the patience to repeat yourself• Keep it up!

MOREINFORMATION

Visit:www.communityschools.org

Contact:LJ Wilson, Communications Coordinator, wilsonl@iel.org