Branding

There’s a lot of conversation about school branding happening among educators, and I think that’s time well spent. As a former English teacher, the idea that we both are engaged by and want to be part of meaningful stories isn’t a tough sell for me. How convincing our stories are for our audience greatly depends on our unity as we communicate our message to others.

If you’re the campus leader (or even a campus leader), you have more insight into the vision for your campus than other stakeholders. It’s both your privilege and your responsibility to communicate your school’s story clearly.

I can’t emphasize how important it is to be one voice as you communicate positively with your community. In some instances, an overwhelming majority can overcome a few naysayers, but with a school brand, we are more likely to understand the nuances of our communication if we consider this analogy:

Think of your school’s story as an orchestra that must be conducted. Everyone has a role to play. If parts are missing, the song is not what it should be. Someone who is listening can still follow along if everything isn’t perfect, even still appreciate what he or she is hearing. But the difference between an orchestra that is entirely in tune and one that is almost entirely in tune creates a substantially different sound.

Your role as a school leader is to conduct an orchestra worthy of the efforts your teachers put forth. If a section is out of tune, your story won’t reflect the hard work of the educators in your building. Yes, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that there will be inconsistencies. Yes, we all know there are hiccups throughout every school year. Still, it’s your job as a leader (from anywhere in the building) to serve others well and offer support where needed so that you’re all singing the same song again soon.

What elements of your brand need work? What will it take to conduct your orchestra well? (tweet this)

Last semester, our coaching crew challenged teachers on our campus to take time to observe other teachers, encourage them in what they were doing well, and look for areas that could be improved in their own classrooms. It ended up being a great success. Our teachers completed 424 observations of 30 minutes and went back to their classrooms with many low effort high impact strategies to help their students learn. To make the deal even sweeter (and thwart any buy in issues on the front end), teachers who completed four observations earned two hours back in their day during a February staff development day.

As great as that experience had been, it wasn’t realistic for us to manage throughout the entire year. So, the conversation began to stall, and I began to wonder how to give new life to the conversation that had been going so well.

A few weeks ago, I found my answer. Perusing Twitter one day, I stumbled upon a question George Couros (@gcouros and absolutely worth the follow) tweeted:

I loved the idea and immediately began to wonder if this could be our solution.

After a little bit of work (and thanks to the services Canva offers that make it easy for me to look more capable of design work than I am), I sent an email to my campus encouraging them to share the great things they are doing in their classrooms. I included this image with my email: