Don't Be The District That Forgets to Thank Your Teams

Welcome to School Leader Soundbites, a podcast dedicated to empowering K-12 leaders with the latest insights and strategies in marketing and communications! Today’s topic is: Don't Be The District That Forgets To Thank Your Teams

◾What are recognition days?

-Recognition days like bus driver appreciation, school library clerk day, teacher appreciation etc

-Avoid end of the day panic posting by getting NSPRA’s resource guide- all of them are listed inside

◾Why recognition days?

-Everyone likes to be recognized for the work they do

-These designated days remind us how important it is to reach everyone in our system

◾How to share?

-Include the recognition days in your communication to parents and the board calendar

-Put together a press release, don’t just focus on social media

-Have some cards preprinted or e-cards ready in advance

If you need any assistance with this, 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! Be sure to check out the resource guide here- https://www.nspra.org. If you have any questions or suggestions for future topics, I'm here to listen. Thanks for tuning in to School Leader Soundbites.

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

*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. 

Transcript

Veronica Sopher: 0:07
Hello hello and welcome to School Leaders 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 that 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 leader sound bites, and if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, drop us some comments. Now. Let's go ahead and get this episode kicked off. Let's talk about recognition days and what they are. So the title of this episode is, don't be that district that forgets to thank your team, because it happens now. Some of you might be scrolling at the end of the day and you realize that a neighboring district made a post about some designated Education Day. Maybe it was bus driver appreciation day, or maybe it was school librarian clerk day, or maybe it was Teacher Appreciation Day, and you had it as somewhere else on your calendar, because that does happen. So couple of things to think about to help you avoid the panic of posting something at the end of the school day, when everyone else was posting it earlier in the day. Now my first tip is to remind you that you can find all these days at the National School PR Association's website. They've got a handy dandy resource book here, so you can see that here. I always get a hard copy every year, because I like to make lots of notes and put flags on it and highlight different days. But there's also a digital version that you can pay for and download to so if you are a member of the national schools public relations Association, you can go ahead and get yours. And if you're not a member, I highly recommend that you join because they've got joined because they've got tons of really great resources that are helpful. Now, why recognition days are important. Obviously, everyone likes to be recognized for the work that they do, but we've got these designated days to remind us of how important it is to reach everyone in our system. So if I were you, I would get a copy of this book or download it and highlight the days that really speak to your culture, the things that are happening on your campus. Be creative. Make sure that when you are putting together your calendar for the year that you are not just thinking about social media posts, but you're thinking about how else you can incorporate some of these days into your normal communication. So maybe you're a building principal and you want to incorporate it into your newsletter that's going to go home with families. Just put a little blurb in there letting everybody know that maybe next week is National Food Service nutrition day and you want to highlight the team that you have on your campus, or maybe it's paraprofessional day and you want to give a shout out be really creative on how you do it. So not only should you be thinking about social media posts, but also the other ways in which you communicate with families, whether it's newsletters or maybe you send something home periodically, or maybe you're putting it together in a PowerPoint presentation, I like to make sure that it also gets included in the board calendar. So if you are working with the Board of Education or a board of trustees, make sure you're letting them know every month which days your district is going to be implementing into your social media content calendar, so that your board members, also, as members of the team, can put together a little something if that's something they would like to do, maybe at a board meeting. So add it to your superintendent's comments. Add it to your board reports. And for some of these days, you also might want to put together a press release, if that's appropriate for the community that you live in. So be really creative, and don't just focus on the social media posts, because that's my that's my number one pet peeve when districts say, Oh, we do a lot to recognize our staff, and you look and it's just on Facebook, so make sure you're utilizing all of the platforms, and one of my favorite ways to recognize people is to really dissect some of that data. Now, I usually like to do this during the summer months. You know, go ahead and segregate those groups out so that you can either put together a card that is pre printed and maybe signed by the Cabinet members or the superintendent and send those out. Sometimes we have designated days for our operational staff. Maybe it's plant services or human resources or the business office. Everyone should have a designated day, and everyone deserves to be recognized. Now, if printing is not in your budget or you just have too many people on your team to really make. Make that effective or an efficient use of time, then put together a greeting card that's electronic that you can actually send to people so that when they get to work in the morning and they open up their email, there is an appreciation email from the superintendent or the cabinet just recognizing them and thanking them. Now, you always want to include some art, so whether it's photos of people of that department, or a logo that you've put together, make sure that it's personalized, so that everyone can not only read the recognition, but feel the recognition. Because art always makes a big difference. Now here's why this is important, because we know that humans in general, are exposed to 2.3 million bits of information per second. So per second you are being exposed to about 2.3 million bits of information. Whether it's something you hear, smell, taste, see with your eyes, experience, maybe it's that little hairs that stand up on the back of your neck, you are constantly receiving information, but your brain can only process about 127 bits of information per second. So the rest of that information is going into your subconscious, and your subconscious is what drives your emotions. So when we think about making sure that we are really building the culture in our climate, on our campuses and in our district, a big part of the emotion comes from our subconscious, because our subconscious is driving the emotions. So when you as a staff member see that your district is recognizing you, not only on social media, but via email or it was mentioned in a newsletter or in a board report, you're feeling appreciated, you're feeling valued in gratitude, and when you feel those things all of a sudden, it makes it very difficult for you to feel anger and frustration and negativity, because they live in the same part of the brain. And we know this is true because some of us have actually been at funerals where we're really emotional and we're experiencing grief deeply, and we might be crying, but then all of a sudden, someone tells us the story of our loved one who may have passed, and we start laughing and we start giggling. So we're literally laughing through our tears, and that's because the brain cannot hold appreciation and gratitude the same time it's holding negativity. Superintendents, as you are onboarding you leaders into your system, remember that we can all use a thought partner, especially as we are onboarding into a new district or into a new role, having a thought partner there to just bounce ideas off of and get some one on one coaching is crucial to optimizing your leader, especially as we deal with budget crunches and polarizing narratives in our community. If you want to learnmore about our thought partner alliance, then make sure you click the link below to give your team that extra support they need with the thought partner alliance. So if you are looking to elevate the environment and the culture on your campus in your district, a great way to do it is recognition days. Now you might be thinking to yourself, when will I have time to do this. Actually, I like to do things in batching. Now you've you've ever listened to my any of the other episodes I've put together, I can tell you that batching is one of my favorite ways to ensure that I'm being equitable across the district and I'm reaching all of the groups. So during your summer months, if you've got access to interns, or maybe you've got some projects that you're working on, go ahead and build in time for a couple of days and build out your entire calendar for the year. Now use this handy dandy tool that I shared with you earlier. It's the unspro school calendar. There's a different one every year so that you don't get the dates mixed up and circle all the ones that you think would really speak to your community and absolutely do your best to thank everyone for all they do to make sure that students have all the resources they need to be successful in school. I hope that information was helpful to you. Recognition days are one of my favorite things to do in the school communication space, and I hope these tips help you out just a little bit. So I appreciate you guys tuning in. If you are listening on the podcast, make sure you hit subscribe. I don't want you to miss any episodes of school leader sound bites. And if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, drop some comments, questions and even suggestions, because I love the circle back. All right, until then, we'll see you next time you.