Hastings+Area+Schools

Hastings Area Schools 232 West Grand Street Hastings, MI 49058 @hassk12 Sara Matthews-Kaye My Linkedin Profile My Flickr Account

Final Week Wrap-Up
 * Successes**
 * 1) We are on our way to present to the school board at the end of the year. Hopefully they will allow us to open up a Facebook page and a YouTube channel for the school.
 * 2) By presenting to my colleagues about Twitter, I have started a conversation with some willing staff members about using social media in positive ways to support professional development. I have at the very least opened up eyes and brought awareness to the staff.
 * 3) Contact has been initiated and lines have been open with PR directors in neighboring school districts who are using social media. From those contacts, we are better prepared to make our social media campaign work.
 * 4) We are consistently gaining followers on Twitter and Twitter is being promoted on our school’s student-run news program.
 * 5) I have students working on a video that supports their using social media as a tool for learning.
 * Failures:**
 * 1) We haven’t received permission yet.
 * 2) Only a handful of staff members, out of 50, signed up to follow us on Twitter. Many just seemed annoyed by the idea.
 * 3) Our administration said, “Good Job,” and proceeded to talk about how they don’t use Twitter or other social media tools.
 * Frustrations:**
 * 1) The bureaucracy will be difficult to get through, and even if we do succeed in receiving permission, it will likely be impossible to convince the school board to actually turn the running of the social media into some sort of paid position. With so much on teacher’s plates right now, and with looming pay cuts for next year, it may be difficult to find teachers willing to contribute to making our social media sites great.
 * 2) Our administration spent time reminding the staff about the dangers of social media and discussing cases of staff members befriending students and then posting inappropriate photos parents and students could see. This is frustrating because these are not cases that are the fault of social media. They are cases of teachers making idiotic choices. Why would you ever befriend a student on your personal Facebook page??? The lecture, if there needs to be one, should be on how to create a professional “self” online.
 * 3) Too many staff members are stuck in the pre-tech revolution. One teacher kept saying during my Twitter presentation, “I don’t see why I just can’t use e-mail to communicate. Students should use e-mail.” Another said, “I have spent months putting together a web page. Why would I use Twitter if I’m already using a web page?” The questions themselves weren’t the issue - it was the tone behind them. They were questions from people who weren’t really looking for an answer. I do believe that once we get more media channels up and running, more teachers will come on board. We will have to show them that it’s useful.

Week Seven Update April 21

This week I went in front of the Hastings High School staff and presented to them on the use of Twitter as a tool for professional development. I also explained how the use of Twitter was part of our overall strategy to use Twitter as a PR tool (and that we were going to go before the board).

The presentation discussed several things. The first part addressed the lack of time and money that teachers and school districts have to use toward proper professional development. I listed ways in which we grow as professionals: attending conferences or classes; talking with other professionals and educators; reading up on the latest trends, research and best practices; finding mentors. I then showed how Twitter can used to meet all of the above methods for professional growth, and emphasized the ease of the social media tool, and its quickness.

I used examples like #educhat, #edtech, and #teachingELA to demonstrate that there are meaningful conversations happening on Twitter. I also emphasized that following smart people leads to smart postings and links.

Tracy then signed up one of our staff members on Twitter to show how easy it is to get started.

The presentation ended with a short YouTube video on social media and its overall influence on people and society.

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Two concerns were brought up after the presentation. The first teacher was nervous about students finding her and following her Twitter feed. I explained that if she had one set up as a professional then it may happen- the kids may find her. I suggested that if she was interested in Twitter she may want to set up two accounts, one for her and one for her teacher identity. Quite honestly, this just seemed to overwhelm her.

The other concern that was brought up was that Twitter was just one more thing to do. The teacher was struggling to build a webpage and didn’t see why she should do both. I tried to explain how Twitter could drive traffic to her teacher webpage, but she wasn’t willing to listen. I walked away thinking that her question wasn’t asked to find the answer, but to gripe.

Overall, I received many compliments on the presentation, but so far only two teachers have set up new accounts. I’m not too surprised by this. Teachers are by nature conservative, I think, and this district has not ever made technology a priority. What I hope for is the permission to be granted by the board to allow us to open up more media channels. I think that seeing is believing for some people, and maybe once teachers see these tools working for other teachers, they will be more willing to try them. (They also might feel pressure from being left behind the technology bandwagon – by the kids and their colleagues.)

On the board presentation front, on Tuesday I meet with the students who are working on a video to use in our board presentation. They are riffing on the DIRECTV ads (don’t sell your hair to a wig shop) by walking through how kids use social media to be happy and hardworking scholars - switch to technology now.

Tracy, after viewing some of the links I sent her to neighboring school district’s Facebook pages, initiated contact with Grand Ledge school district’s PR director. He e-mailed us with a list of things to consider when starting a social media campaign in a school district, and gave us some useful advice. While he stressed the importance of being smart and careful with social media, overall he was positive and enthusiastic about how social media was working for them. This will be helpful support for our board presentation.

Week Six Update April 12

The preparations for the school board presentation are underway. Tracy George and I are working on three pieces for the presentation. The first is the completion of a PowerPoint that we are sharing through Google Docs. (It may be turned into a Prezi before we go before the board.) This presentation will have the nitty-gritty details on the benefits of using social media for the district. We have collected nine different reasons, including things like connecting to the community and connecting to alumni. We will be linking to actual Facebook pages of school districts that are using their pages in those manners. The second piece is a Facebook page for the district that we will open up right before the presentation to show what it would actually look like. I am writing a PR piece about grants that our ELA department wrote and received to reopen a library for our students. This piece will be put on my blog, and then we will link to it on the district Facebook page. We will link to photos that we have on our Flickr account as well. This will show the board the potential PR possibilities that can come from using the medium. In order to include that emotional appeal that you and I discussed, I have connected with three seniors who are now in charge of putting together a video that shows students using 21st century technology. This video will connect to my main argument that I will use in the presentation: We need to be using 21st century tools for our 21st century students. This video will be posted on a YouTube channel that we will create for the district (for the purpose of the presentation), and we will link to it on the Facebook page and play it. The third is a presentation that Tracy and I will give our fellow high school staff members on Monday. The presentation will be on why the staff should use Twitter. We will be emphasizing the professional gains that can come from following educational leaders on Twitter. There are two teachers who are going to allow us to sign them up for a Twitter account at the staff meeting to show them how easy it is. Then we will ask the staff who is already on Twitter to post classroom success Tweets. That way the school district Twitter account can retweet these stories and we can show them at the board presentation. I also created a quick questionnaire for our district’s freshmen. Of the 227 freshmen, another teacher and I were able to survey 175 about the types of social media that they, and their parents, use. The data shows that 94% of students surveyed are on Facebook, and that 89% of their parents are too. The plan is to expand this survey to all grades. I want to use this information at the board presentation because it will demonstrate that we will be able to reach a large audience through Facebook.

Here is the link to my blog post that includes that charts I created to showcase the data I gathered: []


 * It was great meeting you, Sara! We could have talked for another hour! Good luck with your presentation! --Karl**

Week Five Update April 6

This week Hastings Area Schools is on Spring Break. I have used this time off to work on the presentation I will be giving the Board of Education. The purpose of the presentation is to provide the school board with reasons for using social media as a tool for their public relations. I also want to provide them with specific examples of school districts using Facebook and other social media in creative, non-threatening ways.

I found several resources online that are useful in putting together the presentation. Obviously the first examples of online resources are the Twitter and Facebook pages and YouTube channels that school districts are using. Another set of resources that I found are two blogs devoted to teaching schools to use social media. One of the authors that contributes to those blogs is from New York, and she gives presentations to superintendents and school boards on how and why to use social media.

An important piece that I have learned from my research is that in order to be truly successful with social media, the district must have a specific plan in place for how and why they will use it. A district also needs to have someone/people specifically in charge of keeping the sites up-to-date, and patrolling them for offensive commentary.

The staff member that is in charge of Twitter right now, Tracy George, has commented multiple times on the difficulty she has of getting staff members to provide her with subject matter to tweet on. I suggest that this district creates at least a part-time position for someone to go out to all the buildings, the middle school, high school, and three elementary schools, and gather stories, video, and photos to use on the social media sites. The stronger and more complete each piece of social media is, the more the staff and community will go to it.

After talking with Karl, I agree with his suggestion that some of the information that is specific and bulleted about advantages be put together in a packet that can be distributed to each board member. I also need to work on adding an emotional appeal to my presentation. An idea that I found from one of the blog sites discussed how a school needs to be able to show that they are ready to teach a 21st century curriculum by demonstrating their fluency in using 21st century tools – social media is one of those tools.

Week Four Update March 30

Several things were accomplished this week in order to build more of a Twitter following. The first is that our high school’s video production class started including the school Twitter feed in its morning news announcements. They scrolled our Twitter handle daily at the bottom of the screen, and also encouraged students to send spring break photos to our Twitter account. If even a handful of students send pictures, it will establish more followers. I also want to see if parents will come to Twitter if their teens are on it. The second thing I did was create a simple flyer to hand out to parents as they came to the parent-teacher conferences we had this week. This is a shrunken copy of what was passed out to parents: **Hastings Area Schools is now on Twitter!** **(see link on our webpage)** **Follow us: @hassk12** **#saxonpride**
 * Why should you follow us? Our Twitter feed will provide you with up to date school news, information, and reminders. Twitter is a social networking site that delivers news straight to your smartphone, tablet, or computer. Be in the know before everyone else!**

Tracy George, the business teacher in charge of the school’s webpage and Twitter account, also added the icon of the Twitter bird on the corner of every flyer I opened a Flickr account and downloaded several pictures on it that can be used for the Twitter feed, but because there are restrictions on the number of photos and video that can be uploaded under a free account, I’m not quite sure that Flickr will be a long-term benefit for HAS. Even though the professional fee is small, the board will balk at any request for funds right now (they are very close to deficit spending before the school year ends). Other online options for photo sharing need to be researched. The goal of the online photo sharing site would be to have a place where teachers and coaches could upload photos that parents and the community could see. Too many things that happen at a school can easily go unnoticed, and many clubs and coaches have photos that only members get to see. I envision a photo sharing site that we link to on our school webpage. The webpage that we have right now does not allow for many social media widgets or links. Tracy has talked about updating and modernizing the site, but this is something that she wouldn’t even begin to touch until school is out for the summer. Next week HAS is on spring break. I am using the time off to prepare the presentation that I will give to Hastings High School on the reasons why they should allow us to start a Facebook page, along with other avenues of social media like photo sharing. The board meets in April; that will be when the presentation occurs. Below are photos that I took at Hastings High School. We don’t have a sign or marquee in the front of the building, so the banners were the only thing that showcases who we are as a school. The classroom photos are of an English Department Library that is being put together with grant money. I am writing a PR piece showcasing what a handful of teachers are doing in their free time in order to offer students an opportunity to get books to read. (School libraries were shut down officially in 2005.)



Week Three Update

I am adding to the Twitter feed at HAS. My goal is to tweet once or twice a day, Monday through Friday. Before I started, the feed was not updated for several days at a time; therefore, my aim is to increase our exposure by posting more. Another goal is to post news-worth events quickly because I want the HAS Twitter feed to be seen as a place to go for scheduling changes (tweeting that all softball games were cancelled for the afternoon), or for reminders (kindergarten registration).

My initial goal with Twitter was to create conversations by asking questions and encouraging retweets. After explaining my intentions to Tracy George, I discovered that the school board only approved Twitter after being assured that it would be a tool for one-way conversation. (Yes, she admitted to me that she promised them something that wasn’t an accurate reflection of the social media tool.) Those on the board that needed this assurance would seem not to understand what Twitter is, or what its capabilities are.

- What is curious about this assurance is that there are two board members who are on Twitter and must have known that we can’t control whether or not people respond to our Tweets, but they did not say anything. –

While questions are off the table, a “conversational” voice isn’t. The Tweets I created are less stilted than before.

The video production teacher has agreed to start using tweets in the student-produced television announcement. Tracy and I will be planting tweets and retweets that can be used. My goal with this strategy is to build followers among the student population in the high school. If they start to see our feed as a source of news and information, they will follow us.

I have increased the number of people HAS follows of Twitter to 20. I added area schools, local newspapers, and education journalists, as well as various Michigan education agencies.

My goal for week four is to use these followers, as well as a few more, to create an HAS education paper.li for our followers. I will also be sending a link to this to all the teachers, support staff, and administrators in the district. My goal with the link is to encourage them to also follow us on Twitter.


 * This week: Wow, impressive analysis of the situation, Sara! It reads like a mystery novel. I can't wait to see how it all turns out with the board! Insurance man just needs to realize that Facebook is simply a conversation that makes people feel like they're an important part of the community, and it can be monitored frequently to remove any inappropriate comments. Negative ones, as you point out, are helpful for growth, and I don't see an issue with liability for someone not raving about the schools. That's censorship. Love the 'cough' comment! -Karl**


 * Last week: Hi Sara, this is a wonderful project, fraught with challenges. Feeding this Facebook page, if approved, will require constant communication with schools for content showcasing teacher and student achievements, upcoming events and the like. You'll need to find out what, specifically, the board is afraid of and I suggest you do some Googling of this issue with other school districts. You may have to present to the board.**

Week Two March 14, 2012

Hastings Area Schools needs positive PR – stat. Two plans are now in action to build this. The first is to build up their Twitter presence. As of today, the school has 38! followers. We need teachers, parents, and students on board; we need them to know that we are out there. The only way to do that, as I’ve learned from this class, is to engage in conversation with them. Right now the twitter feed isn’t conversational. It reads like daily morning announcements (probably because they are).

The second is to get approval to start our Facebook page. If you search for Hastings Area Schools on the site right now, you find a generic page that has had over 1500 views. That means people have gone on Facebook to look for us. We need to take advantage of this audience. I am gathering research on schools that are using Facebook, as well as PR pieces on the benefits of social media in schools.

From my meeting with Tracy George, I learned that she approached the board months ago to discuss opening up a Facebook page. Several board members were on board (two of them are part of our Twitter following, which I take as a positive sign). Two were very against it, and managed to get her request voted down. The main opponent right now is an insurance man by day, and apparently his greatest concern is liability. He is convinced that the school system could be sued for any negative commentary. Tracy suggested that negative comments are going to spoken now matter what, so it would be better to have the opportunity to address them quickly.

Because she is the chief negotiator for our teacher’s union, Tracy doesn’t have a strong relationship with this individual. She believes that if I represent a request to start the Facebook page, bringing in more research and touting my expertise (small cough), I may have a chance to get this through. Last night we officially hired a new superintendent, so I have a chance to make a first pitch to him.

Things to Accomplish by Next Week:
 * 1) Take over Twitter feed: goals – increase followers and raise awareness
 * 2) Contact Mike Engle, video production teacher to see if he can stream our twitter feed during television announcements
 * 3) Create a news piece about our Twitter account and have is shown on our television announcements
 * 4) Follow more people – right now HAS follows only five
 * 5) Change voice, style of twitter posts – more conversational
 * 6) Turn it into a source of content that people can engage in
 * 7) Get the president of the PTO, and other groups like this on board – this is the kind of thing they are great at
 * 8) I am already in the High School, so I know what’s happening there – get at least one teacher in each of the other buildings (middle school, three elementary) to send me interesting info
 * 9) Work with Tracy to recreate a board presentation
 * 10) Meet with her again to get her presentation to wee where info needs to be updated and/or added to
 * 11) Turn research into the presentation

In the next few weeks:
 * 1) Create a HAS paper.li
 * 2) Make sure who we are following is solid so that this can be good – focusing on educational tools and tips
 * 3) Send this link over our all staff e-mail – if we can get teachers reading this, they will follow us on Twitter
 * 4) Talk to Union President – it’s beneficial for all of us to have positive PR for our district
 * 5) Present to the school board
 * 6) Plead for approval



Week One February 29

For this project, I will be working with Hastings Area Schools to expand their social media presence. Because this is a school system, there were a few levels of bureaucracy I had to travel through to get approval.

First, I contacted the business teacher, Tracy George, who was recently appointed as the district's webmaster. She expressed enthusiasm for the project (and I suspect, is also greatful for the extra help).

I then had to approach the district's interim superintendent, who had to run it by board members.

Approval was granted by the powers that be yesterday, February 28, and I will officially sit down with Tracy on Monday of next week. She is out if the building for a school union conference for the rest of the week. We did have a quick chat yesterday, where I found out that the district has a Twitter account, a Facebook page that is awaiting board approval for use, and a YouTube channel that has high school announcements posted. The following and viewership for what is up and running is small.

She also warned me that the school board seems fearful of social media. Several of the members are withholding approval of the Facebook page because they are fearful of negative press. There will be an uphill climb to convince them that social media isn't a passing fad.

The district is in desperate need of positive press and PR. Their enrollment has dropped by the hundreds in the past five years; therefore, their revenue has dropped considerably as well. The local paper hasn't been particularly supportive in their coverage either. They need help with their image in the community.


 * Hi Sara, this is a wonderful project, fraught with challenges. Feeding this Facebook page, if approved, will require constant communication with schools for content showcasing teacher and student achievements, upcoming events and the like. You'll need to find out what, specifically, the board is afraid of and I suggest you do some Googling of this issue with other school districts. You may have to present to the board.**