Effectively Communicating School Safety

Download and read Ken’s school communication articles:

Crisis Communications in a Digital World

The Post-Crisis Crisis: Managing parent and media communications

Communicating Safety to parents and the media

Communications and social media considerations for effectively communicating about school safety

We work school administrators and communications staff to effectively communicate school safety to students, staff, parents, and their school community. Our expertise comes from extensive doctoral research on effectively communicating school safety and from our work with news media across the nation. Our work with preK-12 public and private schools connects us to your school safety communications challenges. We can support your efforts in this critical aspect of communicating school safety.

The pipeline to parents and the media

You have many positive, exciting things going on in your school district that contribute to school safety. Are you missing ways to get the message to your parents and media? You district can have a game plan for working with traditional and non-traditional media to tell your stories of school safety, and building strong school community support.

Things to consider may include:

Media plan: why you need it and how to create it
Telling your story and selling your story
Think like a reporter
How to map out the local media landscape and target your message for broadcast, newspapers, online and social media
Secrets to getting your good news story out
How the newsroom works
What reporters want
Your website: What should and should not be on it
Easy ways to update your site daily
Generating buzz without traditional media
Developing messages that create credibility and trust
Hot topics in school safety likely to thrust your district into the spotlight
Strategies when you’re the target of an investigative report
Managing aggressive reporters
Public records request: Is trouble on the way?
How to anticipate and prepare for the big investigation

Social Media: Keep your friends close and your frenemies closer

Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, and other social media platforms can be the source of challenge for school leaders as well as your best tool for building support and community confidence in your school safety efforts. They can also turn your school into a bad reality show that you cannot control. Things to consider in building a social platform presence in your school community may include:

Your identity online: build it and monitor it.
Manage your online reputation
Build followers and engage with the community
Sidestep traditional media and get your message out thru social media.
Truth, transparency and trust: the currency of social media
Creating your own news channel
The 24 second news cycle
Rumor control
Monitoring gangs, fights, suicide talk
What to do when a hallway fight lands on YouTube and Instagram
Threats by proxy server
Managing negative comments and threats on social media
How social media can keep reporters off your back
Why listening is often more important than talking

Effectively managing difficult community meetings

School safety incidents may thrust school leaders into community meetings and conversations. Do your public meetings get hijacked or derailed, losing focus on the important issues of interest to your school community? Things to consider:

Delivering key messages
Handling wringers
Responding to politically charged questions
Agenda driven traps
Moving the meeting forward

Crisis Communications: You do have a plan, don’t you?

During a real emergency you don’t have time to look up phone numbers or worry about what to say at a news conference. From violence to severe weather to bus accidents, some of the topics to consider include:

Critical first steps – Who does what during the first hour
Who should be on your priority contact list
Best ways to notify your staff, your parents, your community, the media
Preparing for your first news conference
Six critical comments to avoid if violence strikes your school
What the media needs from you
What parents expect to hear
Holding statements
Dark website
Social media control center
Rumor control
Monitoring the media
Correcting misinformation
Hardware and software you will need if you are evacuated from your building
Best ways to keep parents informed during an ongoing situation
Managing texting and social media when student safety is an issue
Handling communications in the weeks after a high-profile school crisis

Media Training: Do you duck for cover when you see reporters coming?

Are you prepared to navigate the sea of cameras and field reporter questions – from the news conference to the ambush interview? Have you considered your preparation for:

On air camera training
Strategies for news conferences and live interviews
How to look your best on camera
Learning the language of sound bites and quotes with short and meaningful messages
Rules of the road for on the record and off the record comments, and other conventions of traditional journalism
Keeping control of your message and staying on point
Pitfalls: What you should never do in an interview
Handling difficult questions and ambush interviews

We support authentic, transparent, and timely communication strategies, crisis communications, and social media strategies to help you effectively communication about school safety with parents, reporters and community decision makers.