Public School Marketing Ideas For 2017

I can’t think of an “industry” that needs this more, especially in California, where sky rocketing home prices, combined with the influx of charter schools is creating a steep decline in the public school population.

It’s sad.

As a product of public schooling all the way through my M.A. (that’s a masters, not Massachusetts. That wouldn’t even make sense), I hate to see it lose its footing the way it has.

We have great public school, with great public school teachers, but something has to change, and fast.

That’s why I am writing this essay, to help the public schools of California, and may be the rest of the country as well. With Betsy DeVos at the helm, you guys will need all the help you can get, and then some. Yikes!

The Strategy

Become a company, at least in the marketing and advertising aspect.

Apple. Nike. Mercedes.

What do they have that you don’t? Money. Just kidding.

A marketing department, duh!

There is no need for a whole division of new employees, but there should be 3–5 in every school district, where all they do, 365 days a year, is produce content for your school district. Get you out there in any and every way, all over the internet.

Think about it.

There are no limitations to the amount of content you could create for an entire school district. Hell, if you want to get serious, have a marketing director at each school.

The whole concept of bell to bell is over, or it needs to be over, if you want a shot at saving this system. Go outside the school hours, off the campus, and on to the phones (cell phones, we aren’t starting a call center here).

The longer you wait, the harder it will be to recover.

The Possibilities

The goals? Content every single day, in as many ways as possible.

Photos, videos, short-films, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, books, seminars (whew), on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Music.ly, YouTube, Medium, Quora, LinkedIn and anything else that pops up in the next few years.

Do everything. Be everywhere.

Videos/Short-films/Documentaries/Vlogs:

1. Stories of students, teachers, workers, parents, former students, a school’s history, etc.

2. Create a TV show. Create multiple TV shows. Life of a high schooler, life of a teacher, etc. Change it up every semester. Like Hard Knocks, but school. (We all know what Hard Knocks is, right? Good).

3. A sports show. Make your own ESPN. Get footage from photo/video students for all of the sporting events and make your own show. Have hosts, tell stories, or just copy FS1 and ESPN!

4. Have subject matter vlogs. There is no reason why a district can’t create their own Khan Academy. Each subject/grade level shares the duty (*snicker) of creating the content. Explanations, videos, charts, etc. Hell, there should be a video post of all of the explanations from class that day online for students to be able to reference anyways. It would be great for the students and hold the teachers more accountable to actually teaching.

Blogs/Books/Podcasts

1. You are inundated with experts. Use their knowledge to create. Blogs on different subject matter, podcasts for those kids who can’t read (they exist, I’m sorry). Give, give, give content, expertise, information, value.

2. Create a Q&A podcast. Teachers answer students’ questions in a particular subject or lesson, then it is up there for all to see! Helping future students forever!

3. Once you get enough Qs and As, you compile it to create a book. Experts write so they can share their expertise. Could you imagine if a parent received a book (available on Kindle and Audible of course) at the beginning of each year describing what the students would be learning, changes they would be going through both physically and emotionally, and getting you prepared for everything? It would be amazing!!

I know what you teachers are going to say, “But we do stuff like that already! We have meetings, we help kids. Waaah.” That’s great, but your school or school district is losing kids every single year, it’s time to step up your game.

Ugh, I know what the other teachers are going to say too, “but my school has a waiting list! We are doing fine!” Wrong, you are not. You are in the “rich” area of your district and parents think your school is better because of that. They think there are better teachers in the wealthier areas, because the “scores” are higher. That is not the case at all. Your students are nerds. If you were really good, you could go downtown and kick ass there too. Not going to happen? That’s what I thought. Just admit that you are limited, and that you are not the only school in the district. Team effort here people.

The Socials

Be on everything.

I mean, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (and their stories), Snapchat (especially this), Music.ly, etc.

Take your new-fangled media department, and divide them throughout the district. Take pics of students learning, kids having fun, teachers teaching, snaps, stories, boomerangs (Instagram), etc. Do it all. Go where the people are. Be relatable. Be on their phone, not just bell to bell. Not just the parent letter home each week, the conference once a semester, the discipline call, or the open house night. Be there. Every single day. Let them see you. Let them see that you see them. Everyone is important, everyone is a star in your district. Share, share, share, give, teach, learn, inspire!

Seminars

Forget the lame parent nights, give seminars on important stuff for kids and parents in general. Have it in a centrally located venue. Invite the community. Invite experts. Share knowledge other than when the cookie drive is. There are so many questions, districts need to own it more. I know they have parent meetings, but really it’s just a check mark.

“See! We did it! Our parents are informed now!”

Really?

How many peoples showed up?

3.5? (was 4, one left early).

People show up when they are given value. No one there? No value being offered. At least not real value.

Seriously, would you go to some of the meetings you have? HELL NO!

So why would they?

You get the outcome you deserve, not the one you want. It’s obvious when you do something because you have to (and there is a lot of that). Stop blowing smoke up the parents’ ass. Hell, stop blowing smoke up your own ass that what you are doing is valuable and working. The proof is in the pudding, and in the numbers.

The New You

Stop putting ads on Pandora. I don’t want to see the 8 Ivy League kids from your district, each one coincidentally a different race (so we all feel included) on my movie screen at the mall. Stop taking half ass measures with half ass effort and half ass results. It’s not working. You are losing full classes of kids from each school every year. How long are you doing to do the same ol thing?

Hopefully you think about this over the weekend, get a little fire going, and take charge of your schools and your district.

Develop a media team (not teachers on their spare time, that’s stupid), rally the teachers, and get going.

Oh, and teachers, stop looking at your dumb ass contracted hours and work like you actually give a shit about your students, school, and job. Unions are only good for the weakest link. Hopefully that’s not you. If you are mad about that last statement, it probably is.

Let’s do this.

Good luck!

Joey

MediaMedia

Bully

You know them.

They bring you down.

They ruin your day.

They make the good things bad and the bad things worse.

They are awful.

I know there is a general sentiment among the older generations that kids today are weak. They can get overwhelmed by bullies. They get depressed.

They say things like:

“Why don’t they just fight back?”

 “A lot of successful people were fueled by bullying when they were younger.”

“It will toughen you up.”

What they don’t realize is that bullying is on a whole different level than it has ever been. You used to be able to go home. Leave school. Leave the bullies when the bell rang. Maybe you had to deal with them on the bus, or the walk home. But once you got home, you could escape.

It’s not like that anymore.

The Holistic Nature of Modern Day Bullying

It’s everywhere.

School.

Home.

Day.

Night.

Weekdays.

Weekends.

All day.

Every day.

The internet has allowed bullying to become a monster for anyone who is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end. Web 2.0 has allowed it to become a living nightmare.

How many times do we need to hear the heart wrenching story of a young boy or girl taking their own life just so they can escape the torment of relentless bullying to realize what we are dealing with here?

The threat is real.

It comes in the form of trolls, fake accounts, hateful words, disgusting jokes, and unrelenting attacks.

The worst part? The bully is someone you know. It is someone you see every day. Someone in class. Someone you interact with. You may not know exactly who it is, but you have an idea, and there is nothing you can do about it. Hell, you may know exactly who it is and still can’t do anything about it.

You know it, and they know it.

No one can step in until “something” happens. That “something” is always physical. It could be a fight. It could be a suicide.

You have to deal with it until you can’t deal with it anymore.

Think about that.

Nothing can happen until you can’t physically and emotionally handle it anymore.

Not until you break.

It is awful just thinking about.

You know you have been there before. It may not have been bullying, but you knew you would break if it continued.

That’s what these kids have to deal with every day.

We love the Hollywood ending to a bullying story, don’t we?

We want it to be like A Christmas Story, where Ralphie gets fed up with Scot Farkus and beats the s*** out of him. The bully crumbles in to a bloody, sniveling mess in the snow. Good. They deserved it.

But it doesn’t always work like that.

It is usually much more devastating. Effecting the lives of the victims of the bullying and their families. Or God forbid, the lives of bystanders that have been watching the bullying and never taking a moment to speak up, or step in.

Reality

Bullies are sad people.

All of the ugliness and darkness that they spew out towards you comes from inside of them. All of that darkness. The hatred. The ugliness. That is them. That is who they are on the inside.

They are the weak ones. The good part is they know it. The bad part is they will never let anyone else know it. But we do. How? Because only hurt people hurt people.

Confident people don’t need to put people down, or talk themselves up, or redirect negativity. They are confident enough in themselves to let the way they live do all the talking.

Confident people don’t need to tell you how great they are and the things they have done. They know you see it. The weak ones are telling everyone about it. You know people like that. It’s a weakness, not strength or success.

Just like a bully.

Bullies feed off of people they think can’t take it. They are weak and think you would be a good victim. It builds them up to break you down. But you can’t let them.

It sounds cliché, but karma is a bitch. People that treat people bad will be brought down. It is inevitable. If they don’t realize the errors in their ways and change their behavior, they will end up all alone. Angry. Weak. Sad. With no one to take all of that anger and sadness out on but themselves.

That is not a good place to be.

They need to be prayed for because they are broken. They want you to feel like them, so they attack you. Why should they be the only unhappy people? As much as you want to hate them, know that all of their ugliness comes from somewhere, and they have to deal with that. Believe that they will.

Strength

This song is for the bullying victim.

Bully (song): iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Spotify

You don’t deserve what you are going through.

You have put up with so much already.

You are “so mother***ing strong.”

It may not feel like it. You may not know it. But I know it. The people around you know it.

You have everything you need to get through this inside you. You have God-given strength that has allowed you to endure all of this up to this point. It can build up everything that has broken down. 

Take the power back from them. They knock it down, you build it back up.

 “When they buried you, they didn’t realize you were a seed.”

Never give up.

Never give in.

Bully

Bully (song): iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Spotify

Your words are, like knives,
 I don’t, don’t think I’m, alright
 I wonder if I’ll make it on my own?

 You build off of, my breakdowns.
 What’s worse is, I let your hatred in
 and slowly break my down,to the ground

Chorus

You pull me under, but I’m still alive and breathing.
 You drag me down, but I’m going to stay right here.
 And watch it fall all to pieces, then build it back up again.

 You bully me, but I am still alive and breathing.
 You push me ‘round, but I’m going to stay right here.
 You never will break my spirit, I’m stronger than anything.

I’ll wear these, scars I have to, shed light for, the others
 struggling, to make it on their own,
 not alone

 not ashamed to, to say that,
 what you’re doing, is not right.
 I know I have the love to make me strong,
 from above

Chorus

you’re words are, like knives, but I,
 I think I’ll, be alright.
 I know that I can make it on my own,
 ’cause I’m so motherfucking strong.

 You build off of, my breakdowns.
 But not today,
 you can take your hateful ways,
 and change before you drown,
 cause they’ll be nobody around

Chorus

Bully (song): iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Spotify

Joey

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