School district looks at improving public image

The Shawano School District is working on reviving its public image, and it could be turning to a communications consultant to help restore its trust with the public.

The Shawano School Board received a presentation Dec. 5 from Dorreen Dembski, who runs her own communications company out of Fond du Lac that focuses on internal communciation and public relations for school districts. She has 18 years of working as a communications director for various school districts and then worked with the Wisconsin Association of School Boards before starting her own business.

“Communications is one of those things that escapes a lot of schools, not because you don’t have the desire or even that you don’t have the goal, but oftentimes you don’t have the people on staff who can get the work done,” Dembski said. “I started working with schools a long time ago, and I continue to work with schools now on my own as an independent contractor.”

Interim Superintendent Kurt Krizan said that the presentation was just to get an idea of the services that could be offered through Dembski, and if the board was interested, he would ask her for a formal proposal.

However, the question of cost soon came up, and Dembski indicated that six months of work from her company could cost the district in the range of $25,000, which brought up some questions from the board members. Dembski said the cost breaks down to about $3,000 to $4,000 per month to start, which includes dedicating 20 hours a month to examining what the district’s needs are.

“Whether it’s doing your newsletter or working on your social media content strategies, there’s a lot of work that gets done in the first year for a foundation to be built,” Dembski said.

Board member John Arens sees better communication as essential, saying that there’s little to no marketing going on in the district. However, he wanted to make sure that this proposal didn’t turn into more work for the staff.

“The one thing I don’t want to see is that we’re paying money, and it means more meetings for people,” Arens said. “I need something to actually happen with this. If we look at a marketing person, what do we need to bring in? If we bring in seven outside students that join the school district, that pays for our marketing person.”

Board member Karen Smith noted that the district has already offered a hefty pay hike for the work proposed to be done in house. She referred to when the board voted in 2020 to have Robyn Shingler, Shawano Community Education director, was given a $20,000 pay hike to take the lead in the district’s marketing and community engagement.

“Are we going to be reducing that department’s salary if we go this way?” Smith said.

Board member Alysia Pillsbury said she appreciated the opportunity to be able to think about the communications proposal, as she was feeling some deja vu about the issue of public relations coming back on the board’s agenda.

“I just want to know that there’s going to be a return on that investment,” Pillsbury said.

Dembski noted that much of her company’s work focuses on ongoing communications, but she has also worked to inform communities about school referenda. Shawano’s public schools have been considering going out for operational and capital requests to voters but have held off since a survey conducted earlier in the year indicated a lack of trust in the district’s handling of finances, with most of the finger-pointing aimed at former Superintendent Randi Anderson.

Dembski said the reason many school districts are behind in their communications effort is that the transmission of information has changed as the internet has become entwined in people’s lives. Prior to the internet, information came out more slowly with time for officials to prepare a response, something that has been lost in the age of 24-7 information dissemination.

“Information moves quickly. We also have misinformation and disinformation, and with all of those things, it makes communication a 24-7 job,” Dembski said. “Some of us prefer emails, some of us prefer texts, some of us prefer face-to-face. We all have our own preferences, and we only attend to what’s important to us.”

The key to improving public relations, in Dembski’s view, will require district officials to understand that the timing of information going out is powered more by the community than by the schools.

“People want information when they want it, not when you want to send it,” Dembski said. “That’s a big problem for school districts — what to send, when to send it, how to send it. Another downside is that if we don’t provide the information people are looking for, they become frustrated, disillusioned, think that you’re hiding something.”

Dembski praised some of the work done so far, including recognizing outstanding staff and students. She noted that a presentation earlier in the morning where Krizan handed out certificates honoring people with Hillcrest Primary School is something that’s not seen very often in schools.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com