:: Bond Measures and Consulting Firms – Who would you recommend and why?

• The Bakersfield City School District recently used Davis Demographics for a student population study and Caldwell Flores Winters Inc., for the bond campaign. BCSD passed the 55% bond with 64%! These consultants are very thorough on the public relations and campaign programs.
• Placentia-Yorba Linda USD has been very pleased with George K. Baum & Company (www.Gkbaum.com. Contact Ann Nock, 916-341-0783). Their surveys are very good and they help you every step of the way including deciphering what the surveys are trying to tell you.
• In 2001, Eureka City Schools hired Jeremy Thorn of Education Research to conduct a poll of 1000 registered voters in our district and present a report on the results to our school board. They were pleased with his services, but they did not hire his firm to run the subsequent bond campaign... that was done by a community committee.
• Larry Tramutola has been used by many CalSPRA member districts. Glendale USD worked with him in 1997. He subcontracted the survey but advised in the campaign, which the district won by a 72% margin. Vic Pallos says Tramutola is abrasive at times, but knows how to win. At that time he had one of he best track records in the country. Murrieta Valley Unified has worked with Tramutola’s office on their last four bond measures, all of which have passed. Fremont Union High School District worked with Tramutola on a Parcel Tax in 2004 and a bond campaign in 1998, both of which were successful. (www.tramutola.com)

:: Labor Strife and PR – Looking for help?

• ACSA is really helpful in this regard. Call your local office.
• Talk to Tom DeLapp!
• When CalSPRA member Pat Willett was a Board member, the two negotiating teams agreed to work on a joint statement on the progress of negotiations at the end of each negotiating session. Willett drafted it then and there on her laptop and both sides had to sign off. They all agreed that there would be no comment beyond the agreed-upon statement.
• CalSPRA member Erin Kennedy has been putting out a one-page fact sheet based on rhetoric that comes up at the negotiation table and/or in union newsletters, flyers, etc....She posts on the district’s website, sends it out via e-mail to all employees and community that subscribe to the district’s regular e-News, and prints and places it in all employees' mailboxes. She says, “The audience can hit reply and tell me what they think. And boy do they. I can tell it's working. Union leaders and diehards are defensive, community and rank and file teachers are thankful for the information.” You can find Erin’s work on www.fresno.k12.ca.us under "FUSD Facts" in our Quick Links menu on the left-hand side of the screen.
• For LBUSD’s “Facts from the Table” newsletter, click on the following link to access all 24 editions from last school year: http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us/district/superintendent/employees_relations.asp

::How is Your PR Office Organized and What’s Your Budget?

• In Stockton Unified, with 38,000 students in 56 schools, member Dianne Barth is the communications director with a secretary. She does contract for some help with her newsletter, the layout and printing. She does all of the media, produces a monthly parent newsletter, oversees parts of the Website, and organizes events including parent meetings to discuss district wide changes, school dedications and community events.
• Mt. Diablo Unified has 36,000 students and 50+ schools. Sue Berg is the one person who serves the dual role of admin. assistant to the superintendent and communications specialist (i.e. PIO). She has no support staff. Sue’s budget for communications (excluding the district’s new parent notification system) is a challenging $25,000.
• Murrieta Valley Unified has 21,000 students in 16 schools, a general fund budget of $147,974,906 and one person in Media & Communications.  Member Karen Parris does have some part-time secretarial support this year for just a few hours a week. Karen’s communication budget is $78,000 this year, which includes $38,000 for three issues of an 8-page community newsletter and an outside consultant who does the website.
• William S. Hart Union High School District has just under 23,000 students in 16 schools, a general fund budget of $167 million and a one-person Community Liaison (public information) office – member Pat Willett.
• Santa Barbara School District has 16,000 students, 1,800 employees, a $215 million general fund, and a $98 million facility-improvement bond. Member Barbara Keyani is the one person in the “Special Projects and Communication office,” along with a half-time web designer. Barbara shares a secretary with two other administrators and gets only about one to two hours a day of secretarial support. The "Special Projects" part of Barbara’s title is all the "duties as assigned" things that are not necessarily communications related.
• San Ramon Valley Unified School District, with its 25,000 students, has a one-person Community Relations office made up of CalSPRA’s own President Terry Koehne. His budget is $44,000 and he has less-than-half-time administrative assistant.

:: Boundary Software and School Locators on the Web

• Anaheim City School District uses Decision Insight. You can see how this software works using the link below – use ACSD’s address (1001 S. East Street, Anaheim, CA 92805) as a sample address. http://di.decisioninsite.com/Locator.aspx?StudyID=161&cookieTest=true
• Murrieta Valley Unified School District modeled the boundary feature on its district website around the school locator on Temecula Valley Unified’s website. You can check it out at:  http://65.61.21.14/boundaries/ 
• Stockton Unified has “a terrific boundary site on the Web with an interactive school finder and it's a life saver in light of the fact we did the dramatic boundary changes this year.” Call Dianne Barth if you need help using it. Parents can type in their address, get the name and location of the assigned school and then link to the principal and more on the school.
• East Side Union High School District used FileMaker Pro and obtained the data from SASI. You can see it working here... http://dbserver.esuhsd.org:591/street_locator/
• William S. Hart Union High School District uses Davis Demographics and provides the ability to do live searches on the  Web. As the district gets new addresses, they put them into the system by hand. To see how it works, go to www.hartdistrict.org  Click on Attendance Boundaries in the middle of the page, then on Search Schools of Attendance by Address.

:: ConnectEd for Parent Communication?

• Stockton Unified uses ConnectEd. The district expects principals to use it quite a bit and the superintendent to use it sometimes. Use is limited so parents aren’t inundated with messages. Member Dianne Barth says the service has great scripts already written.
• William S. Hart Union High School District replaced an old system with ConnectEd. There are specific people authorized to use the system to send messages. Schools can access only their own parent lists. All district-wide communications go through the district office. ConnectEd has been invaluable in emergencies, according to member Pat Willett. Her schools use the service for everything from PTA announcements to absence reports to emergencies. A few district-wide announcements about events such as our District Honor Band performance got so much negative feedback that the district now restricts district-wide messages to emergencies only. Pat says that when they send out an emergency message, they have found it helpful to replicate it on a pop-up emergency message window on our District Web site. This saves a lot of calls from parents whose answering machines cut off the messages, whose kids answered and passed on a garbled message, people who didn't get all the details the first time around on the phone, etc. The district’s biggest problem has been broadcasting emergency messages in secondary languages. Emergencies tend to happen at oddball times and we don't always have a translator available in the district office. Another big advantage to the system:  Messages can be sent from my home, from a school site that has an incident underway, or anywhere there is a computer or cell phone. No need to return to the office.
• Mt. Diablo USD recently started using ConnectEd, with positive results, even from initial skeptics. A message from the superintendent just before school started (a week earlier than usual) definitely helped attendance on opening day. We have sample guidelines from the vendor if we need them, but so far we're basically following the same practice as others: use the system sparingly as it is primarily for emergencies.
• Glendale Unified is using ConnectED this year with good results. Their client care representatives have been very responsive and available to help with implementation, answer questions, etc.
• Centralia School District has used ConnectEd in many circumstances and member Colleen Bragalone says there is nothing that can compare to its benefits.  It has been worth every penny.
• ConnectEd has been invaluable to the Power Unified School District. There are many sample messages on the ConnectEd website for users of the program. Their technical assistants are ready and willing to help anytime…the service is comparable to Nordstrom’s!! What member Sharon Raffer likes best is hearing each principal do his or her message. “They have begun to incorporate their personalities into the messages, so that the culture of that school is communicated each time a message is conveyed. Some of our principals send weekly messages; all use the program for emergency communications, and the district has done the same. Several principals have said it is one of the best purchases the district has made!  And, in case of a crisis it is awesome!"