The experience a parent or community member has when they call the main office, complete a registration form, ask a transportation question, navigate a website or portal, raise a concern, request language access or any number of other interactions shapes the way they feel about their school or district.
While local educational agencies use different terminology to describe these instances — customer service, community relations or family and community engagement — a new report from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) shows that these moments shape whether people feel informed and confident that their needs can be met.
“Trust in public education is shaped not only by major decisions, public messages or moments of crisis. It is also shaped by the everyday experiences that families and community members have when they seek information, ask for help or try to resolve a concern,” NSPRA Executive Director Barbara Hunter wrote in a forward included in the report. “When information is unclear, expectations vary or a process is difficult to navigate, the issue often surfaces as a communication challenge. As this report makes clear, however, the customer experience of families and community members extends beyond communication alone to encompass the systems, expectations, handoffs and follow-through that influence whether they feel valued, respected and supported.”
Key findings
Researchers explored whether LEAs seek to intentionally shape external audience interactions, how expectations are communicated and reinforced, barriers faced and how school communication professionals perceive the relationship between customer experience, trust and community engagement.
Sixty-three percent of the school communication professionals surveyed said their district places a high or very high priority on intentionally shaping positive external audience experiences, but just 38 percent said their district is very or extremely effective at providing consistent, positive interactions.
“Consistency is difficult to achieve across decentralized organizations like school districts,” the report states. “Respondents most frequently pointed to differences in how schools, departments and individual staff members handle interactions — often resulting in families and community members encountering very different levels of responsiveness, clarity and support depending on where they seek assistance.”
According to researchers, respondents most often pointed to limited capacity or time as a core challenges, as well as unclear responsibility for reinforcing expectations, school-level autonomy, lack of documented expectations and limited training or professional development.
The report recommends LEA leaders consult with their communication team to help identify patterns, clarify language and support consistency across interactions, and follow these conversations up with professional development and adoption of policies and processes that can shape and improve day-to-day practices across systems.
