Leadership-Principal Summer Reflections II

Principal Summer Reflections Part II

Marketing 101

In past articles I have covered some key leadership ideas. I encourage you to read prior articles and review the following posts: Summer Reflections: July 8, Okay is not Okay: June 21 and Your Image: June 7.

In this week’s article, I would like to expand on this body of work.

Depending on where you live, the start of the school year is weeks, if not days, away. I am sure you are busy putting all of the finishing touches preparing your building and staff for the children. I hope you find time to think about several of the points I will make today. As the title of this article suggests, a great deal of your time has to be spent marketing your product. And let us not forget, your product is the best education fiscally possible for your students.

First, please make sure the outside packaging of your product is appealing. Yesterday, I happened to be riding by my previous district, stopped at a traffic light, and looked to my right to see one of my old elementary schools. The playground was overrun with weeds and small trees / weeds three to four feet tall growing against the building. It was all I could do to prevent myself from calling my old maintenance supervisor to express my displeasure, but then I quickly realized I was no longer the superintendent. It is especially troubling because this school is used for an extended summer program and parents pick up their children in the playground area. What message is this sending? What is the packaging saying? If this product was on a shelf in a store, no matter how good the product was inside of the wrapper, I would in all likelihood pass it by. Likewise, a block away, the baseball field which at one time was a source of pride is also overrun with weeds. The dirt infield is now almost fully overgrown with grass. Yes, baseball season is over, but as one rides by and looks at the field, one can only wonder. Does it have to look this bad? I implore you to please use these last days as an opportunity to improve your “package”. Schools are visible in the community 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days in the year.

While I am on this topic I will ask you this question. When was the last time you inspected your students’ restrooms? Namely:

Are they clean and operable?
Is hot water available?
Are paper towels and toilet paper well stocked and checked during the day?
Is soap available and is that checked during the day?
Is safe and cold drinking water available?
Are the doors on the stalls operable?

Many of the complaints I received from parents about the schools pointed to one of these items. All easily solved and prevented. Would you or your faculty use the students’ restroom? Would you drink the water made available to students? If you cannot positively answer these questions, there is a problem. Like so many other things, this reflects back on the culture of your building.

A new role that must be embraced by principals and superintendents is the role of chief marketing officer or public relations director. I strongly believe a course in this should be offered in our graduate level programs. This role would be foreign to the previous generation of administrators. However, in today’s world, the survival of your school may be determined on how well the school is perceived by your potential clients. In this era of school choice, vouchers, magnets, and charter schools, it is the survival of the fittest. The sad reality is that public perceptions do not have to be true, but if people believe them, it doesn’t matter if they are accurate. It is all about how the product is packaged and sold.

Jayne Ellspermann (2016) tells us “it is not about the building or the people: schools need to achieve to succeed”. To a large degree, I agree with that point, but I think I need to go a step further. Let us add an additional sentence to this statement. It is not about the building or the people: schools need to achieve to succeed. It is also about what the public believes about your school. You may feel that this is unfair and a very sad state, but I will argue that it is true.

I have had to battle this issue. I would also like to remind folks that this is not a high school or secondary issue. It a district issue. People make their decisions about your schools very early in their child’s academic career. These decisions are many times informed by gossip and war stories on the youth soccer field, neighborhood picnic, the shopping mall, or social media. The myths will grow and be reinforced by people who may have had a troubling issue or they had a bad experience in the school when they personally were children. Like the old telephone game, people love to change and distort the truth, and all so called horror stories are magnified and cemented. We have to work to unravel these falsehoods.

Over the span of time, demographics in a district and community change. I saw this change take place in my old district. This change ran parallel to the growth of magnets and choice programs available. For years I thought the migration out of my district was “white flight”. I viewed this as nothing more than overt and covert racism. However, late in my career, I had an epiphany as I noticed the migration of African-Americans and Hispanics out of the district. This was not about “white fight”. This was about a phenomenon I refer to as “bright flight”. Parents of all ethnic backgrounds want their children to be educated with children and families who have similar goals and values regardless of race or nationality. For whatever reason and for whatever misperceptions, people believed my district was void of these students. The community had little faith that these serious students not only existed, but thrived in the school. Our students were able to pursue a full array of Advanced Placement courses; the school was safe; students went on to matriculate in top colleges; there was a full array of co-curricular activities most notably a nationally recognized performing arts department. Yet many parents looked to escape.

Why did this happen? In part, I believe it occurred because we allowed the erroneous negative opinions to overtake those people that believed positively about the district. If enough people complain loud enough, even though they may be wrong, left unaddressed it will suffocate any positive thinking. We were slow to embark on a positive marketing campaign. We failed to keep pace with how the new breed of schools packaged themselves and sold themselves to the parents and students. People will tend to fill a void in their thinking with whatever may be loudest and most available. Playing catch up is hard. I have had the chance to spend some time in competing schools and can assure you that what is on the inside is no better than what was offered locally in my district.

“Bright flight” is an epidemic in many districts. A well thought out strategic action plan is needed to combat this. You have to acknowledge the epidemic. You have to own it, and for your schools survival, you have to defeat it. To do this you have to sell it.

It is all about the marketing!!!

Good luck.

References

Ellspermann, Jayne (2016) How to Make Your School a Great Place to Work and Learn. Seen Magazine, Issue 18.1, Spring 2016.