What is your social media communication strategy?

Has your school district developed a social media communication strategy? Perhaps you have intertwined it with your overall communications plan. But if not, here are a few easy steps you need to think about.

1. Know your audience. Who do you want to engage in the conversation and who is already having a conversation about you?
2. Define your goals. Perhaps it is as simple as wanting to share good stories about your school district or as complicated as changing public opinion about an upcoming referendum.
3. Choose your metrics. Will you determine your success by number of followers, by the quality of the engagement, or a mixture of both.
4. Be present where your audiences are. You may need to be on various platforms to reach the different audiences with which you wish to communicate.
5. Listen to what your audience is saying. Are there complaints that could be easily remedied (e.g., a lack of signage), or suggestions that could be acted upon (e.g., parents would like better communication on a certain topic).
6. Respond to their concerns. With the recent incident in Marinette, you may find that your parents are concerned about how your school district would handle a similar situation. If that's the case, what information can you share to relieve their anxiety.
7. Provide content that they value. Besides dates for upcoming events, sports scores, etc., what kind of information does your community value about your schools? Perhaps continued updates on a building project or how monies are being used from a recent referendum. Your community may also find it valuable to be provided information regarding school closures or lockdowns.
8. Measure the results. There are many different tools to measure the influence and reach of your social media efforts. Watch for a future post which will delve into this topic in more depth.

Why Emotional Attachment to Schools Matters

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Gallup, recently released their third annual Soul of the Community report. This study was conducted over three years in 26 cities across the United States. The study is designed to find out what emotionally attaches people to their communities and makes them want to build a life there.

Consistent in virtually every city in the study there are just a few categories that create emotional bonds between people and their communities. The top four categories include the area's physical beauty, opportunities for socializing, a community's openness to all people, and education. What was surprising is that jobs, the economy and safety were not among these categories.

Attachment is important because the communities with the highest levels of attachment had the highest rates of gross domestic product growth. This discovery is important because it opens up new possibilities for leaders to make informed decisions regarding policy using concrete data about what generates community and economic benefits.

In the communities that are studied, residents always rate the quality of colleges and universitites higher than the quality of K-12 public schools. In addition, less than one-quarter of residents rate the quality of their communities' K-12 public schools highly. Nearly half rated their schools poorly and the views have become more negative since last year.

The study suggests that leaders have much to gain by improving the perceptions of the quality of K-12 education in their communities. Not only will this increase attachment overall, but a more positive view of public schools can also help attract families that will help raise the next generation of talent in the communities.

Putting this study into context
Standing alone, this study is interesting and provides some new insights about what is needed to grow the productivity of our communities and also our state. But what it also does is provide some much needed data to share with the leaders of our communities and state (aldermen, mayors, legislators, governor, etc.).

If education is one of the top categories that creates emotional bonds that attach people to our communities, it is important that all community and state leaders proceed carefully around communicating their ideas regarding education reform.

According to the study:

Gallup research proving the link between employee engagement in the workplace to business outcomes such as productivity, profitability, and employee retention helps to underscore why emotional attachment matters. Just as actively engaged employees are more productive and committed to the success of their organizations, highly attached residents are more likely to actively contribute to a community's growth.

Rather than label schools and be openly critical--federal, state and local leaders need to focus on working with educators to improve our schools through best practices as well as adequate funding. To not do so, according to the Soul of the Community study, will actually have them working against what they so very much want to do -- grow our state and our communities for economic success and to improve their ability to meet resident's needs.

Our role as leaders in public schools is to make sure we are communicating what is working in our schools. Both elected officials and our communities need to understand how K-12 public schools are meeting students' needs, exploring innovative ways to deliver curriculum and working to constantly improve.

Waiting for “Waiting for Superman”

A guest post by Joe Donovan, Donovan Group, LLC

In 2000, I was an aide to a U.S. Senator and played a very minor role drafting an important bill, the Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. However, the bill I was working on went nowhere. A bipartisan group moved very quickly on another reauthorization bill, one with a catchier name: No Child Left Behind.

By the time the law was passed and signed, I was no longer working for that senator. Instead, I was working at our state’s Department of Education, where my work, along with that of my colleagues, would entail implementing NCLB.

I remember pouring through the text of the bill and being astonished by the new requirements that would be put on states and school districts as a result of it. I said to my wife, who does not work in education, “Everything will change as a result of this new law.”

My wife’s response was very interesting and I remember it as if it were yesterday. “’Everything is not going to change in education," she said. "Kids will still come to places called schools, learn from people called teachers and bring home backpacks filled with stuff called homework.”

My wife was right. To most people, schools did not fundamentally change as a result of NCLB, just as they did not fundamentally change as a result of other school reforms after the release of the watershed 1983 report on education, A Nation at Risk. In large part, education has not changed because people have not wanted it to change.

The reason for this is simple: the idea of what school “is” is so much a part of our culture that changing education is tantamount to changing people’s minds about what a school should be.

Now, here is the kicker… Those on the outside, like my wife, are okay with the fact that education has not changed fundamentally. The familiar is comforting. My wife knows the system, she knows what it means to be in fourth grade and she likes it when our kids are assigned to work with flashcards because that's what she did when she was a child.

Education leaders, those whose life’s mission is to innovate the system, see caring parents like my wife as maddening because they are not pushing for innovation. My wife and those like her are not against innovation or continuous improvement. However, “school reform,” in their minds, means tinkering around the edges of a system that already works.

The idea that “schools work” is central to how most people make sense of the US education system. We can see in our research that most people like their kids’ schools. Even people who do not have a strong connection to the schools in their community because they do not have school-aged children believe that their schools are generally doing a pretty good job.

However, my wife’s perceptions, and the perceptions of parents and community members around the country, are likely about to change.

“Waiting for Superman,” the new film from director and producer Davis Guggenheim, is a powerful one that will shake the public’s perceptions about America’s public schools. As with any good film, it presents some people as villains, others as saints and mostly points to ways in which the system should and could be fixed if only we, as educational leaders, were paying close enough attention to the problems.

The challenge for educators is to not be caught flatfooted. The ideas presented in the film are not new; they are things that education leaders have been working on for years. With this in mind, we in education should see the film as a blessing, one that will create new advocates for our efforts and a public that embraces change.

As educators, we must work to focus the public on efforts underway to improve the system and get people to understand that we need them to become engaged and stay engaged.

The most important thing we need to do is to ensure that we do not lose the faith of the public. Nothing will do that more quickly than speaking of these issues as if they are only theoretical or far off. The film will create a level of urgency with which we are not familiar in education, and we need to be ready to speak of the issues that we have been wrestling with for years. Most importantly, we must do so with the same passion as the scores of the newly converted, including, by the way, my wife.

To delete or not delete...those negative Facebook comments

As WSPRA president, I try to follow member districts' Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. The other day as I was viewing my Facebook page, I saw that the Ripon Area School District had posted on Facebook some photos and a short description about a community member who was talking to students about change.

Unfortunately, someone had posted one of those "public schools are harming your children" comments. Rather than ignore it, I decided to add my own comment to counter the negative remarks.

This led to some great questions from Ripon's Superintendent, Dr. Zimman, about when it is appropriate to delete a comment and whether deleting a comment makes for a bad impression.

Acceptable use policies
If your district does not have an acceptable use policy posted on your Facebook page, I would strongly recommend that you post one.

By having an acceptable use policy, you are within your rights to delete a comment that does not meet the criteria you have posted as being acceptable.

The Green Bay Area Public School District has the following acceptable use policy posted on its Green Bay East High School Facebook page.

The Green Bay Area Public School District East High School Fan page is meant to share information and encourage conversation. We’d love nothing more than for you to share your memories, celebrations, and school experiences via comments, photos, videos, and links here.
Please keep in mind that we are a school district, and students and staff also have access to this information. With that in mind, we review content posted here and will remove anything inappropriate, offensive, not pertaining directly to the district or beneficial to student learning.

Australia's Business.gov also has a short and concise policy.

Business.gov.au welcomes comments on this Page. Please apply common sense when making comments. If it is something that you would not say or show it at work or school, then we recommend you don't post it on this Page.

Comments, links, photos and videos deemed inappropriate will be deleted.

We are committed to maintaining your privacy and ask that you respect the privacy of others when posting on our Facebook Page. Inflammatory, defamatory, commercial, spam, overtly party political and comments encouraging activities illegal in Australia or that are detected as transgressing copyright or intellectual property laws will be deleted.

However, some acceptable use policies are much more detailed as to what is considered inappropriate use. The following is from the Australian Human Right's Facebook page.

The intent of the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Acceptable Use Policy is to create a positive space where people are able to publicly contribute their views to this page, without fear of abuse, harassment or exposure to offensive or inappropriate content.

When contributing your views, please ensure that you:

- protect your personal privacy and that of others by not including personal information about yourself or about others in your posts, (such as names, email addresses, private addresses, phone numbers or other identifying information);

- represent your own views and not impersonate or falsely represent any other person;

- do not abuse, harass or threaten others;

- do not post anything which: racially or religiously vilifies others, incites, induces, aids, assists, promotes, causes, instructs or permits violence, discrimination, harassment, victimisation or hatred towards others, or is likely to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate others, particularly on the basis of their sex, gender identity, race, colour, descent, national origin, religion, ethnicity, age, sexuality or any disability;

- do not make defamatory or libellous comments;

- do not use insulting, provocative, hateful, obscene or offensive language;

- do not post material that infringes the intellectual property rights of others;

- do not post multiple versions of the same view; and

- do not promote commercial interests in your posts.

Posts that do not comply (or do not appear to comply) with the above points will be moderated or may be removed. Posts may be edited by the moderator for length or to remove unacceptable parts of contributions.

Whether your acceptable use policy is short and concise or long and detailed, as long as you have posted a policy you are then within your rights to delete comments that do not meet your Facebook's rules of engagement.
 
Now, I need to follow this good advice and post a policy on WSPRA's Facebook page.
 
 

Are you an effective communicator?

While we are always communicating, whether it's through body language, speech or the written word, the question is, "Am I communicating that which I want to communicate?"

Communicating is an art. According to Valeria Maltoni, Director of Strategy at Powered, Inc., and author of the blog, Conversation Agent,

Improving communication is like learning to use a new language effectively -- all of a sudden you're getting to St. Peter's Square because you were able to articulate what you actually wanted to do.

In a blog post last May, Maltoni listed 10 ways to become a better communicator:

1. listen and ask questions 
2. set expectations on what you're going to say, and restate what you said in closing
3. know when it's time to listen and when to talk
4. state your intention, or what you mean to accomplish
5. communicate often with your team and acknowledge progress on projects
6. observe the communication style of others and adapt yours to connect with them
7. learn to tell stories
8. develop the analytical side of you
9. be consistent and transparent
10. get out of your office and talk to people outside meetings

Being an effective communicator takes practice. Like any second language that is seldom used, our communication skills can become less fluent, leaving the recipient of our message confused.

Have Social Media Writer's Block?

School districts have a ton of content to share with their followers on Twitter. A good rule of thumb is that you should be tweeting at least once a day. Yet, there may be days when you are struggling with writer's block.

So, what can you post? Your options are limitless. But here are a few.

1. Tweet or retweet a community event.

2. Retweet something that your followers may find of interest (e.g., an article about teaching and learning, a blog about parent involvement, etc.).

3. Tweet a twitpic of some fun activities kids are engaged in. 

4. If it is Friday, participate in Follow Friday by including the hashtag #FF in your tweet and then list some of your followers. What a great way to gain exposure for local businesses or organizations.

Sometimes the easiest way to overcome writer's block is to just read other's tweets. Without a doubt, someone will have something worth retweeting.

Using Social Media to Drive People to Your Website
School districts have a lot of important information to share with students, parents and community members. It makes sense to have a district website where you can easily share this information. However, it may not be obvious to users of your website where they can find the information they are most interested in. Also, if your home page is not often updated it may appear to users that your website is rather static.

However, social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook allow you to send out links to information on your website.

People tend to visit websites when they are looking for information. Which begs the question, "Will they visit when they don't know there is information posted that they want?"

Using Twitter and Facebook as a way to share information and drive your stakeholders to your website is a great way to increase website usage, keep people informed (and thereby more satisfied with your district), and improve participation in events/activities.

Making the most of your Facebook Fan Pages

Since the February workshop this blog has been quite silent. I apologize for that. Today I was inspired to get back to it.

During WSPRA's Social Media:Get on Board Workshop we spent a fair amount of time on Facebook Fan Pages. Several Wisconsin school districts already have their Fan Page up and running.

I follow the Social Media Examiner blog. If you are not currently following this blog, I highly recommend it. This blog provides the tips you are I are looking for: practical, step-by-step and easy to implement immediately.

Today's blog, "How to create a Facebook Fan Page Editorial Guide," once again provides some very helpful ideas. The blog focuses on five items your editorial guide should include:

1. Posting Strategy
2. Content Strategy
3. Formatting
4. Engagement Strategy
5. Prepare for Negative or Promotional Posts

As I read the blog today, I was reminded of many of the questions and concerns that were raised during the February workshop. So I wanted to share and hopefully you'll find this blog as helpful as I do.

Communication is the Key to Unlocking Doors and Hearts

In a recent newsletter sent by the American Schools Foundation Alliance, their front and center story was “Communication is the Key to Unlocking Doors.”

Those of us who know communications, know how true that is! The article goes on to say, “The link between communicating and raising money is clear.”

Now, the application of that idea to public schools may not be as immediately obvious to some as to others. But again – how true! Think about it: why would anyone want to spend money on something they know nothing about? I think the majority of people do not go into a store and say, “Give me something – anything, I just want to spend money.” Of course not!

Well, if we extend that reasoning, then, it makes total sense to me that we must always be communicating with our publics about our schools. If we don’t – they have no idea what they are paying for, and then why would they want to continue paying? Worse yet, if we aren’t communicating with them somebody else may be -- and it may or may not be the true picture.

It is true, communication is the key to unlocking doors and I would add, unlocking hearts. I’m sure the author intended this to mean two-way communication: Not just sending, but actually engaging and communicating two-way with our publics. That’s when we will start building relationships.

Dorreen Dembski
Director of Communications
Wisconsin Association of School Boards

In a School Choice Environment Who are Your Ambassadors?

Across the state, there are a multitude of news stories detailing the efforts of public school districts to market themselves. Billboards; newspaper, radio and television commercials; YouTube videos, and brochures have been some of the more common methods.

On their own, how effective are they in determining parents' decisions as to where to send their child to school? While these advertising methods may create awareness and peak interest, I would argue that it is really your school's formal or informal ambassadors or perhaps lack of, that play a critical role in how parents choose a school.

Brains on Fire blog recently wrote the following:

Maybe you’re not in a formal ambassador program or even consider yourself an ambassador of, well, anything really. But when you start thinking about it, you might be surprised that you choose or not choose to be an ambassador every day.

Case in point, if you’re a runner and like to run outside in public places (like downtown), more than likely you’ve been stopped and asked directions by pedestrians or even drivers. At that moment, you have a decision to make. Because in that moment, you can choose to be an ambassador for your city. You can choose to take the time to stop and get them where they need to go and wish them well on their way. You just became an ambassador. You just gave that person a “customer experience.”

My point is that you don’t have to be involved in a formal program to be considered an ambassador. You don’t even have to be a loud and proud evangelist to be considered an ambassador. We make decisions everyday when we interact with others. And many times, brands are a part of those interactions. So take the time to become aware of your conversations. Because those are the same ones your customers are having. And each and every one of those are an opportunity to make both your lives better.

Does your staff serve as ambassadors of your schools? When out in the community does the staff speak positively about the schools they work in? Do the conversations the staff have with friends and family enhance or improve your brand, or do they create or reinforce negative perceptions of your schools?

Beyond staff, parents and community members also serve as ambassadors of your district. Do your parents speak well of your schools? Have they and their children had positive experiences in your schools? If a parent had a complaint was it dealt with to the parent's satisfaction? Do you seek feedback from parents so that you are aware of existing problems, or does everyone else know except you?

While advertising is a way to get the message out about what makes your schools great, it needs to be supported by the conversations happening in your schools and communities. How can you impact those conversations?

Creating Social Media Policy

One of the topics that will be covered at WSPRA's February Social Media: Get on Board Workshop will be developing social media policy.

In Jason Falls article, What Every Company Should Know about Social Media Policy, he points out that only one in three companies has social media policy in place. He suggests that companies consider the following social media policies:

•Employee Code of Conduct for Online Communications



•Employee Code of Conduct for Company Representation in Online Communications


•Employee Blogging Disclosure Policy


•Employee Facebook Usage Policy


•Employee Personal Blog Policy


•Employee Personal Social Network Policy


•Employee Personal Twitter Policy


•Employee LinkedIn Policy


•Corporate Blogging Policy


•Corporate Blog Use Policy


•Corporate Blog Post Approval Process


•Corporate Blog Commenting Policy


•Corporate Facebook Brand Page Usage Policy


•Corporate Facebook Public Comment/Messaging Policy


•Corporate Twitter Account Policy


•Corporate YouTube Policy


•Corporate YouTube Public Comment Policy


•Company Password Policy

While this may seem like policy overkill, Falls writes:

"By having written policies for your employees in personal and company use, your customers or audience in their behavior in interacting with your company and processes in place for handling social media content production and user-generated content handling, you mitigate risk and keep your lawyers happy. In my experience, when policies are in place, the “no”s you are used to hearing from legal and compliance suddenly become “yes”es."

School districts are a rather cautious lot and rightly so. However, good social media policy can take the risk out of community building through social media and instead provide greater support of your mission to educate children.

School Choice and Social Media

Wisconsin's school choice is often a blessing and a curse for public schools. Having students choice in to your district provides revenue, having them choice out, does not.

School choice also forces districts to wonder why families choose one particular district over another. The choice may have to do with proximity to home or parent's workplace, athletics, academic offerings, or a district's reputation.

So where does social media fit in? In a recent blog by Brian Solis, The Myth of Control in Social Media, he argues that in order to manage your brand you need to engaged in social media.

"Without participation, perception and sentiment are free to wander and influence those with whom it touches.


The truth is that in the era of new media, we are all brand managers, responsible for its stature, resonance, and direction. While we may not retain control, we now have the ability to shape and steer impressions, answer questions, solve problems, and engender appreciation. And in the social web, brands are now expected to humanize and connect directly with everyday denizens to convey purpose, establish goodwill, and reassure communities that their voices are heard. It’s not enough to simply give the brand a voice. People align with the people, prowess, and promises they can believe in. We are now expected to breath life and personality into our brand in order for it to earn the attention and interest of those we wish to reach."

In other words, no matter how hard you market your district through advertising, brochures, etc., in order to both retain and attract students to your district, if you are not listening and responding to what is being said about your district, your efforts might be for naught.

If your district is still unsure how to jump into social media, WSPRA encourages you to attend our one-day workshop on February 26, 2010, Social Media: Get on Board. This hands on workshop will teach you how to listen, respond and proactively share your message.

Social Media - One of the three ways to make it successful for your district: make it a team effort

On January 14, 2010, Mashable: The Social Media Guide posted an article titled, "3 Things You Need to Know About Social Media Strategy," by B.L. Ochman.

The three things you need to know are:

1. Everyone must work together.
2. Top management must be on board.
3. Don't expect overnight success.

While it was great to see the idea of social media being a team effort reinforced, what really stuck out about this article is the recognition that organizational leaders need to support social media in order for it to be successful.

Ochman wrote:

"Listening and responding to what customers are saying about the brand in social media can supply good intelligence and give the company a chance to interact with customers. 'Our management doesn’t want to listen to customers,' the PR director said. 'They want to talk to them.'

However, that doesn’t work anymore. The status quo is dead. Any company that isn’t willing to listen to customers and be nimble and quick enough to respond, and, when necessary, change, will soon be unable to compete with smart, tech-savvy companies that can turn on a dime.

Willingness to change is the new bottom line for every business today. But top management has to buy in before change can begin."

This is true for school districts as well. The school board and superintendent need to support social media efforts. Because social media allows for a two-way dialogue with the community, leadership needs to be responsive to situations and/or growing sentiments within the community.

In addition, while most social media tools are free to use, there is a cost in resources to keep your presence sustained and your interaction real and timely.

Finally, the article makes a great point about social media being a long-term commitment.

Ochman writes:

"Realizing that employing social media in the marketing mix is a long-term commitment to change, the best way to start is to pick manageable, measurable goals."

Register your district's team for WSPRA's February Social Media Workshop and define your social media strategy.

Another good argument for why you need to bring a team to WSPRA's February Social Media Workshop

On Dec. 19, 2009, WSPRA posted a blog about why you need to bring a team to our February Social Media Workshop. That blogged shared social media expert Chris Brogan's comments on why social media should be a team effort.

Lorrie Jackson on her blog When Message Matters (January 3, 2010) also makes a great argument on why social media efforts should not be delegated to one person. While her blog focuses on post secondary education organizations, her suggestions make a lot of sense for K-12 public school districts as well.
Lorrie wrote,

 "I’ve heard the horror story a few too many times. One staff member managed a school’s Facebook page then he/she left that school. No one else was designated a page administrator and guess what? No one at the school could, without the help of the former employee, access that school’s page. Yikes.

That’s worse case scenario, but the reality is: supporting a school’s social media campaign is a team effort. There may be just one person that’s posting most of the content to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., but you need the expertise and input from lots of folks for a truly successful and campuswide approach."

Check out Lorrie Jackson's blog to find out who she thinks needs to be on the team and why. It will give you great suggestions on who you may wish to bring to WSPRA's February Social Media Workshop.

Social Media: Not sure where to start? Follow a few blogs.

In order to understand how to lead the conversation, you first need to understand how the conversation occurs and what everyone's already talking about. The first step is to start listening. Following several industry blogs can give you an idea on how to engage.

On January 11, 2010, Free.edu posted on its site the 100 best education blogs 2009. The article does a great job of listing the blogs and describing what each one covers.

I encourage you to take a moment or two to check out the blogs that interest you.

Social Media as a teacher retention tool?

When we think about social media, it is often in the context of how do we share our story. How do we connect our districts with our communities?

But Lynne Lancaster, a consultant on generational issues based in Sonoma, Calif., and co-author (with David Stillman) of the upcoming book The M-Factor: How to Turn the Millennial Generation’s Great Expectations into Even Greater Results, wrote a great article about what social media and technology in our workplace will mean when it comes to retaining new, young teachers.

Lancaster writes, "...This is a generation that sees technology not simply as a tool for getting things done, but as the basis for conducting their lives. Blocking Internet or e-mail access, tolerating poor bandwidth, or offering 'old school' tools not only frustrates teachers of this age group, it can be a deal breaker...Now the access-to-technology issue has been complicated by the advent of social networking. Websites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn provide Millennials with more than just ways to chat with friends and post photos. They can share ideas and opinions, conduct research, learn best practices and connect with colleagues. To be cut off from these opportunities in a profession that is already somewhat isolating might seem too high a price to pay."

As you look to develop policy around technology usage and social media networking, Lancaster's article will definitely give you some common sense suggestions.

Do you know the 10 golden rules of social media?

Jumping into social media can be scary. Knowing the rules can make sure that your dive into this new communication medium is successful. Aliza Sherman shares the 10 golden rules of social media:

1. Respect the Spirit of the ‘Net.
2. Listen.
3. Add Value.
4. Respond.
5. Do Good Things.
6. Share the Wealth.
7. Give Kudos.
8. Don’t Spam.
9. Be Real.
10. Collaborate.

Sherman also shares five fundamental ideas about how we should consider using social media in 2010.

Follow these four criteria to better communicate with your community

Joe Donovan, president of the Donovan Group, LLC, and WSPRA member, suggests four important criteria when communicating with the public.

1. Don't use acronyms outside the bubble. Ever. Instead, provide an explanation in the simplest possible terms. Just like a good doctor, take the time to explain the issue in a way that everyone can understand.
2. Treat community members as bright and thoughtful people. I don't understand my car's fuel injection system, not because I'm not smart enough to understand, but because I simply don't care to learn. My mechanic understands this.
3. Don't overwhelm community members with too much information, but allow them the opportunity to ask questions or get more information if they want it.
4. Make your point and move on. Don't make the mistake of debating the obvious. Communicating with the public is not a grad school seminar.

Here's the entire article:

Race to the To The Top - No Child Left Behind and Why My Mom Doesn't Care
By Joe Donovan

A trusted education communications professional, speaker and author, Joe Donovan is the president of the Donovan Group, LLC. Joe Donovan previously served as a partner ... I live in a bubble and, if you are anything like me, you do too. As education professionals, our world is filled with the challenges of complex policy issues, new best practices in curriculum and instruction, and the many acronyms that color our conversations.

We have advanced degrees and years of experience working with these issues, and we have a commensurate level of familiarity with them. And so do other people - our colleagues mainly - who are also in our bubbles. Inside the bubble, we toss around ideas, acronyms, and educational concepts. Inside the bubble, we wax eloquently about such nuanced policy issues as the supplemental services provision of the No Child Left Behind Act or what Race to the Top will mean for our longitudinal data systems. The problem is that my mom doesn't care.

My 74-year-old mother, like most other members of the public, is interested in education. She sees it as the critical determinant of her children's and grandchildren's happiness in life and success in the work place. She reads two newspapers a day, watches the nightly news, and is on top of current events. She is interested in education, but she is certainly not in the bubble. And therein lies a problem.

As educational professionals, we too often do an inadequate job communicating with my mom. And if community engagement is on the positive side of the communications continuum, we do a very poor job of engaging my mom in the challenges and opportunities of our schools.

My mom and others like her are important stakeholders for our schools. But many of the districts that I work with have upwards of 80% of their community members with little or no connection to the schools. A large part of that group is seniors.

Perhaps this lack of involvement is because when it comes to communicating to anyone outside our bubble, we tend to make one of two critical mistakes. First, we tend to use the same language and methods of communication that we would use inside the bubble.

My mother is bright and patient, but she is not going to read a white paper or journal article: no way, no how. And like most others, my mother knows the No Child Left Behind Act by name, but does not know what it means for our schools. Similarly, IDEA and Race to the Top are just more noise in the already-noisy education echo chamber.

The second mistake that is too often made by education professionals is to assume that community members know nothing about education. This is worse because it seems to community members that either you are hiding something from them or, just as bad, suggesting that they are not smart enough to understand.

After leading focus groups and conducting surveys over the years, I can tell you that while community members often do not understand specific pieces of educational policy, they do understand educational concepts. For example, my research consistently suggests that community members want to make sure students have the knowledge and skills necessary for success in an increasingly competitive work life. You and I call that "21st Century Skills". They call that a good education.

The key, then, is to find a common ground where you can communicate with community members about education in a way that allows them to engage more deeply in the conversation. Here are four criteria for communicating outside the bubble:

1. Don't use acronyms outside the bubble. Ever. Instead, provide an explanation in the simplest possible terms. Just like a good doctor, take the time to explain the issue in a way that everyone can understand.
2. Treat community members as bright and thoughtful people. I don't understand my car's fuel injection system, not because I'm not smart enough to understand, but because I simply don't care to learn. My mechanic understands this.
3. Don't overwhelm community members with too much information, but allow them the opportunity to ask questions or get more information if they want it.
4. Make your point and move on. Don't make the mistake of debating the obvious. Communicating with the public is not a grad school seminar.

When you do find yourself outside the bubble and using acronyms like LEA, IDEA, AYP or SIP, remember these three letters: MOM.