S1 E33 What Makes A Great Back To School Media Pitch

Welcome to School Leader Soundbites, a podcast dedicated to empowering K-12 leaders with the latest insights and strategies in marketing and communications! Today, we are discussing What Makes A Great Back To School Media Pitch. Getting ready for back to school is the perfect time to invite the media in, and having your school media pitch ready is appreciated.

Interview preparation

-When we think about the first day of school, people don’t always think about what it takes to get ready to go, invite the media in to see the process and drop in data points of how many schools that staff supports.

Interviewees ready to go

-Have names ready to go and permission in place of people you want media to talk to

-Invite media for convocation or new teacher training

-Share about new teachers that have come from within your school system

Visuals and Data

-Visuals and data make the reporter’s story more robust

Emotion

-Celebrate your long term staff, school bus drivers and crossing guards and share their stories

The first few days of school are hectic but if you can manage to sprinkle in some positive media, it is a great thing to do. As you are starting the school year, if you are looking for a facilitator or need some help, head to veronicavsopher.com. If you want more info, please contact me or drop questions in the comments and be sure to share this episode with your colleagues! If you have any questions or suggestions for future topics, I'm here to listen. Thanks for tuning in to School Leader Soundbites.

*School Leader Soundbites* is your essential podcast for navigating the complex world of K-12 leadership with confidence and clarity. Hosted by Veronica V. Sopher, a 25-year veteran in school public relations, this podcast delivers actionable insights and innovative strategies to elevate your school's marketing and communications efforts. Veronica V. Sopher is the strategic designer behind several award-winning marketing campaigns and has crafted winning bond and tax rate communications plans. With extensive experience in crisis management—including handling weapons and deaths on campus, natural disasters, and polarized political landscapes—Veronica is an expert passionate about public education as the great equalizer. Join Veronica as she shares her expertise and offers practical tips that will optimize your leadership and support your district's goals. Whether you're looking to enhance community engagement, improve transparency, or turn feedback into actionable results, *School Leader Soundbites* provides the tools and knowledge you need to succeed.Sponsored by K12 Insight, this podcast is more than just a resource—it's a catalyst for meaningful change. Discover how K12 Insight’s solutions can strengthen relationships with parents, students, and staff, fostering a culture of trust and collaboration within your school community. Veronica is also available for consulting and public speaking, specializing in leadership development and executive coaching. Tune in and transform your leadership journey with insights that make a real difference.

Find me at: https://www.veronicavsopher.com/

Social: @VeronicaVSopher

*About Our Sponsor:* K12 Insight partners with schools and districts to build stronger relationships with parents, students, and staff. They believe trust is the foundation of successful education and offer solutions designed to foster engagement, promote transparency, and turn feedback into actionable results. Want to explore how Let's Talk and K12 Insight's comprehensive suite of customer service solutions can amplify your school's efforts and strategic goals? Visit: go.k12insight.com/sopher

Transcript

Veronica Sopher: 0:07

Hello, hello and welcome to School Leader Soundbites. I'm your host, Veronica Sopher And I have the honor of coming to you every week, dropping new episodes of our podcast where we talk about school communications, public relations, marketing and advertising. So if you are looking for some content on how to improve your school district's visibility strategy, you have found the right place. I come to you every week with more than 20 years of experience in school communications, and I love talking about all the things you need to know to improve your school district's presence in your community. So let's go ahead and get this episode started, but before we do, don't forget to hit subscribe. We don't want you to miss any episodes of school leaders sound bites, and if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, drop us some comments. Let's go ahead and get this episode started. We're going to be talking about how to pitch to the media with your back to school ideas. So let's talk about the new school year. We are ready for the 24-25 school year, some of us start in the next couple of weeks. Some of us have just a couple of extra days at the end of the month where we can still get things going. And, you know, put some professional development back into our teachers and invest into our staff before the school year starts. But regardless, next three or four weeks, we should all be back ready for a new school year. And this is the perfect time to invite your media, your local media, in to see the great things that are happening in your school system. Now, if you don't have a communications team, and this is something that you are doing with your leadership staff, here are just a few things to keep in mind. This is what reporters absolutely love, and that is what we call a package, a pitch, a media pitch that is ready to go, that has all the important things. And there are four things I want you to keep in mind. The first thing is that they're going to want to do some interviews, so you're going to have people ready to go, names ready to go, approval. Maybe if you've got students involved that have already you've already identified as someone you want media to connect with, make sure you've got parents. Sure you've got parent approval, ready to go, consent to be photographed. You also need to have visuals. Visuals are also really important. That's the second thing you need to keep in mind. If you've got an opportunity to add some data into the media pitch, that is one of the things that reporters absolutely love. When you can show growth or have some comparison data, all that kind of stuff really makes a difference, and it makes a reporter's story more robust. And the fourth thing you need to have is emotion. So we're going to talk about those four things as you prepare for the new school year, and think about how to include media and get some good media coverage for your school district. So let me throw out some ideas here and just think through how this might apply in your school system. So when we think about the first day of school or back to school, sometimes people don't really know what it takes to get school started. So if you've got an opportunity for the few days before school starts, or the week or two before school starts, to talk about what your operational staff, your facility staff, your plant services staff, are doing to get school ready to go, invite the media in. They would love to see the visuals of our facilities folks working on water fountains or installing new equipment or new technology that's coming in, and I also like to celebrate the things that are happening outside of the classroom. And when we think about our bus riders, their first classroom of the day is their school is their that's a great place for you to drop in some data points, like, school bus, and sometimes we've got little pre KERS or kindergarteners who are riding the bus for the very first time, and they're meeting those extra special bus drivers that are making them feel so welcome. So I always like to invite media on how many schools that this team supports. How much square to a bus, and especially in the morning, where they can capture the excitement of our friends. Coming on to our busses and our bus drivers who are just super excited to be able to celebrate a new school year. We all know that we are stronger when we've footage does your custodial staff maintain in any given got a team supporting us. And if you're a new superintendent without a communications team or someone dedicated to the communications function of a district, then reach out and see year? Those are great data points. If you've got how my team and I can help you. We can serve as thought partners. We can provide you a la carte services such as graphic support, copywriting, speech, writing, all those things are going to help you communicate more efficiently and operational staff or facility staff that have been there for a effectively with your community. If you want to learn more, click the link below and schedule a time to connect. And what you might find is that, yes, our little friends coming into our really long time, leverage that and celebrate your long time school system are really cute, and that makes a great story. But sometimes we've got some high schoolers that have special stories too. Maybe they've had the same bus driver their entire career in our school system, or maybe they've had some really employees and really give them an opportunity to shine before great obstacles that they've overcome. Capturing them hopping on the bus on the first day of school is really, really exciting. And I know a lot of our high schoolers are going to be driving, and they get to school in other ways, but if you students come back to the school year. So that's a one thing I can find that one, it will make a really great story. So let's celebrate our bus drivers, and let's not forget to celebrate our crossing guards, because we have a lot of kids that are walkers. So we've got some crossing guards in some of our like to do at the beginning of the school year. I also like to school districts that have been there for many, many years, and they've seen whole families matriculate in through our system, in and out of our system, and making sure that we give them props and celebrate their stories is really invite them in for convocation and our welcome back events that exciting, because our families love to see our crossing guards be ready to get celebrated and to have another great school year. Because a lot of times they're retirees, and this is their second career, so hearing their backstory is really we have new teachers. When new teachers come in, there's important. Again, a great way to celebrate, to celebrate some of the data points that you have if your HR team is still recruiting for bus drivers or crossing guards or some of those, those positions that might be hard to fill. This is another great way usually a luncheon or an opportunity for them to get some for the HR team to get a plug in to recruit like minded community members who would be a great asset for your school district. And it's really, really important to make sure that we additional training. They usually get T shirts, all new are celebrating the things that are going to be really important for our students, especially in that fall semester. So it's a great time to celebrate athletics and Fine Arts. I know our band students, many of them are out there practicing right teacher T shirts. Those kinds of things are also really great now. We've got athletics practicing before school starts, and really encouraging our community to get involved. Does your school district have a gold card program or some sort of program for our senior citizens to get a pass for the school visuals. And if you've got a first time teacher coming into year to come see your athletic and musical events, fine art events for free. If so, make sure you promote that it's the beginning of the school year. So all of our community members who your system who actually graduated from your school qualify for our senior passes or gold passes, invite them to come and get their pass updated so that they can partake and celebrate in the awesome things that are happening in your school system. So the first few days of school are always a system, that's another great story. Make sure that person is little hectic. I get it, but if you can sprinkle some really positive media into it, it will make a world of difference and really improve morale as you are welcoming students and staff back onto your campus. And last but not least, make sure you wants to be interviewed by the media and is comfortable sharing have a call to action for volunteers, because the beginning of the school year is a really good time to get our volunteers in, get their criminal background checks done, and invite them to see all the different ways that they can their story, and nine times out of 10, that gives them an support the school system, even if they don't have students in our system. So you're usually looking for mentors, for people to come and read to students, for community members to come opportunity to give a shout out to the great educators who and volunteer at some of your clothes closets and some of the other programs and events that you have in this in your school system. So don't just think about Welcome back as a way to get our students in and start the academics. Think about how prepare them for this role. So having first time teachers that we invite our community in because they have not heard from us during the summer months, and now is a great time to remind them about why your school system is strong and needs their engagement so that you can continue doing what you do for students. come from your that have come from your system, is another So with that, I'm going to wrap up this episode of School Leader Soundbites. Make sure you hit subscribe. I don't want you to miss any episodes. And if you are watching on YouTube, LinkedIn or Facebook, drop me some comments and be sure to really great way to celebrate the new school year. check out my content on my website, at Veronica sopher.com, or reach out to me on your favorite social media platform. So with that, I'm going to wish everybody a great school year!