District Administration - February 2007 - (Page 46)

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We focus on parents who don’t want their students warehoused [in bigger schools].” Make sure you reach your target. “We don’t have the budgets that businesses have,” says Janet Swiecichowski, Minnetonka Public Schools executive director of communications. “You have to be very strategic.” You can’t afford to waste resources, and there isn’t much room to miss your target. Practice truth in advertising. “If my ad says we’re warm and friendly and have high student achievement, that’s what people need to ﬁnd,” says Swiecichowski. “You need to make sure your house is in order.” Plead poverty. “Get nonproﬁt breaks,” Swiecichowski adds. “Build ongoing relationships with advertising sales reps [through networking and area contacts] so you get a last minute call and a reduced rate to ﬁll their holes.” Get professional help if you can afford it. “It’s a value to get at a minimum some counsel [from advertising professionals] ,” says Mark Masterson, Maynard, Mass., superintendent of schools. “I’m a golfer. Every month I take a lesson from a pro—someone who can look at me in ways that I can’t see myself.” And so the signature slogan, “Maynard: A Place to Shine,” was born. Plante’s local market research revealed that students, rather than their parents, were the principal decision makers in choosing a school, so the television commercials he created ran one afternoon a week for six weeks at the end of 2005 on MTV and even imitated the MTV style of fast cuts and highly visual shots. Set to low-key guitar and drums, the up-tempo style of the ads was speciﬁca lly designed to appeal to teenage students, with short student interview snippets in a 30-second segment. “In a lot of cases,” says Plante, “they would ﬁnish each other’s sentences.” One female high school student portrayed in the ads says, “Our teachers can help us because they know us as individuals.” Pla nte also points out that those spots on the local cable network cost just six dollars a showing, the standard for local, non-prime-time programming. “For a modest amount of money, you can look like you own MTV for one afternoon,” he argues. Ot her television spots were aimed at parents and taxpayers to raise awareness and foster support in time for the annual town meeting. “All marketing is storytelling,” Plante says, “and schools have a lot of good stories to tell. Most of these go unheard.” While Masterson has not yet calculated the effect on enrollment , he has felt the “buzz” caused by the focus groups and related ads. “We’ve had parents talking about our strengths,” he says, in reference to just getting the word out. “That’s hugely effective.” the awareness of people not looking at us,” explains Janet Swiecichowski, the district’s executive director of communications. For the past three years the district has incorporated that goal into its strategic plan. Sw iecichowsk i has placed print ads in Schoolhouse Magazine, a statewide publication, and high-end residence guides catering to families who might relocate to Minnetonka without considering the public school system, which all basically say, “Think about us.” With an eye to recruiting students who are not yet of school age, she has also advertised in specialty publications for young families, including one distributed to ob-gyn ofﬁces in the area. One colorful ad portrays a mother and her child beside a bulleted list of selling points, from excellent standardized test scores to highly qualiﬁed and energetic teachers. Large letters at the top of the ad proclaim, “What Parents Want, What Children Need.” Minnetonka has also taken to the airwaves by underwriting the PBS showings of Clifford the Big Red Dog for the 2006-2007 academic year. The $6,000 contract with Minnesota’s public broadcasting network provides three mentions of “made possible by Minnetonka Publ ic Schools” during each show, seen across the state. “I think advertising keeps our name in front of parents,” says Minnetonka superintendent Dennis Peterson. “Certainly the ads that we’ve done on public television The Minnetonka Campaign In the afﬂuent suburbs of Minneapol is, Minnetonka Public Schools has focused its advertising campaign on attracting parents who would otherw ise choose private schools for their children. “We needed to increase IN THE SPOTLIGHT Just one of the Minnetonka Public Schools’ print ads. 46 February 2007 District Administration school school advertising.indd 46 1/17/07 10:36:08 AM Warning : Unknown : The session id contains invalid characters, valid characters are only a-z, A-Z and 0-9 in Unknown on line 0 Warning : Unknown : Failed to write session data files . 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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - February 2007

Contents
Editor's Letter
Update
Inside the Law
Curriculum Update
Tackling Health Care Together
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Curriculum Hotspots
New Information Systems Track Student Progress
Students Wanted!
Spread the Word
Mentors Boost Student Reading Levels
The Online Edge
Speaking Out
Research Corner
Problem/Solution
Leadership Books
New Products
Calendar of Events
Professional Opinion

District Administration - February 2007