A successful School PR campaign is proactive, rather than reactive. It is important to know what’s being said and who is saying it so that you can respond immediately. Building community support involves strategies and tactics that focus on “flooding” the media with positive information to drown out any false rumors or negative information that is being produced by your critics.

One example is the School PR program my firm, DDR Public Relations developed for the Katonah-Lewisboro School District, for which we won two awards. Following the defeat of their budget a few years back, the K-L District’s then Superintendent and Board President sought my counsel to help pass their budget, which was to be presented for a re-vote just three weeks later. Within this short lead time, I created a strategic PR plan for the district featuring an intensive media relations effort. We provided the media with a series of features about how a contingency budget would affect students, along with a series of articles about district initiatives, school accomplishments and staff achievements. As a result of these efforts, the budget then passed 2-1!

Following this vote, this district hired my firm for the next four years. We at once conducted a communications audit; focus groups were held with selected parents, teachers, members of the School Board and the Superintendent in order to identify key facts and issues. We learned that a deep lack of trust existed between different community groups and the district.

In addition, we conducted an in-depth analysis of existing media coverage, and held interviews with local reporters. We found that there had been very little media coverage to date of programs, events, talent, as well as new district initiatives, spending and other issues relating to the budget.

So, how do you overcome existing negative sentiment? How can you turn your district into one that communicates so effectively throughout the year, that at budget time there’s no scrambling and nail-biting as community members enter the voting booth?

Here are five essential tips:

• Continuously listen to the buzz around your community. Read the blogs, newspapers, the posts on Facebook, etc. Start a rumor page on the district website. (I developed a very successful rumor-stomping page for the K-L District called “Bus Stop Talk” so that all rumors would be addressed and replaced by the facts). Today, we have even more tools to help us communicate. School districts nationwide are embracing social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. They are effectively using these and other social media tools to share success stories, get feedback and to promote school and district events, programs and meetings.

• Always speak with the media when they call and make sure to keep them updated about what’s going on in the district. There should be a special PR liaison that can always be available and accessible to answer media questions and concerns.

• Develop and distribute a continuous stream of press releases that details your district’s initiatives, as well as school/district programs, events and accomplishments.

• Develop opportunities for face-to-face interaction within your community. We found that regularly scheduled breakfast meetings with realtors, women’s clubs and other community groups and clubs was an extremely effective tactic.

• No matter how minor you think an incident is, always report it to the media and to your community members immediately. Have your facts perfectly organized, your spokesperson prepared and information vetted — and get that story out there! If you allow the media and your community to tell their version of what happened, you may soon have a crisis on your hands.

Today’s school districts face great challenges and some complicated issues when communicating with internal and external publics. This has made it essential to reach out to a PR professional who has a particular expertise in School PR.

For more information, please send an email to ddr@ddrpr.com, or call (914) 747-2500.

Dawn Dankner-Rosen is president of DDR Public Relations, an award-winning public relations firm located in Westchester County, NY. For almost 20 years, DDR Public Relations specializes in strategic campaigns for non profits, school districts, and small and large businesses throughout the region, as well as global Fortune 500 companies.

I graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University in 1983 with a double major in public relations and psychology.  I had always dreamed of becoming a psychologist, but could not afford to go on to graduate school.  So, I decided to put a career in psychology on hold until I had saved up enough money to go back for my Ph.D.

I then embraced public relations with all my heart and as a junior in college, became the president of the Public Relations Student Society of America.  I took on internships at a bunch of PR firms and corporations and launched an intensive job search at the beginning of my senior year. Six months before graduation, I landed my first job at a PR firm in New York City, Peter Martin Associates.  A year and two PR firms later, I had doubled my salary and began to climb the corporate ladder starting with Cushman & Wakefield and then, the Kinney Shoe Corporation, where I became the Director of Public Relations.  Seven years after graduation, I started my own agency.

It’s now been almost 20 years since I started DDR Public Relations.  We’ve earned a string of awards and have built an impressive list of past and current clients including large and small businesses, nonprofits and school districts.  What I didn’t know back then and happily discovered throughout the years is that I hadn’t really put psychology on the back burner after all.   Public relations and psychology often go hand in hand.  The relationships that I have with my clients are meaningful, compassionate and central to my work.  The ability to understand and empathize is perhaps, the most important element of our business.  How else can you really get to know your clients and their target audiences?  Having the deepest awareness of who your client is, what he is looking for and where he wants to go is at the core of what we do as public relations professionals.  Just as critical is the ability to understand trends, people and where we are as a society.  It is that ability to see the world around us with x-ray vision and look way below the surface that can be the most important factor in building a successful campaign.

So, today on my birthday I am pleased to report that I’m able to enjoy both passions – public relations and psychology – and thus, have created a winning combination.  This approach is one that creates highly successful campaigns, important relationships and produces record results.