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| Michelle Ready was named ‘Communicator of the Year” by the Michigan School Public Relations Association. |
I was interested to read recently that Michelle Ready, director of Communications and Integrated Marketing for Ottawa Area Intermediate School District (OAISD), was named Communicator of the Year by the Michigan School Public Relations Association.
You can get the full story of the award from the OAISD press release.
Not only is it nice that a West Michigan professional earned this state-wide honor, but I am glad that an area of public relations–school PR–got a little attention.
As I tell my students, and whenever I speak, public relations is a very diverse profession. There is public relations, and there are public relations professionals, in all three sectors–private, nonprofit, and government–no matter what the job title is called.
As for school public relations, I did a video about education PR a few years ago with Ron Koehler of the Kent County ISD and at the time president of the National Schools Public Relations Association (NSPRA). The video was part of a series I did to show in my Fundamentals of Public Relations class to demonstrate the wide variety of PR practice and job opportunities. You can see the video and others in my YouTube Channel under the ‘PR in Practice’ playlist.
I reached out to Ready to congratulate her and ask a few questions about school PR, where she has made her career since graduating from Hope College in 1992, where public relations was her favorite class and her aspiration was to work for a PR firm. But after graduation and assignment at the ISD via a temp agency exposed her to the education field and she fell in love with the people and culture at the ISD. A full-time position opened soon after, and other than a three-month stint at a PR firm, she returned to the ISD realizing that was a better fit.
“It’s rewarding for me to work in an industry dedicated to human development,” Ready said. “I love knowing that my work impacts children and families. I get to experience special moments like when students and educators celebrate together milestones that have been reached, or the excitement of students diving into a new learning opportunity and seeing how it builds confidence. I believe our teachers are under-appreciated, so it’s important in my work to focus on ways to elevate public perception by sharing with our communities the many miracles that are happening in and out of the classroom, every day.”
The PR work for an ISD is diverse. Providing services to all school districts within the county, and to individuals from birth to senior citizen, can get complicated. Primary publics include students, parents/guardians, community members, tax-payers, business/industry leaders, community agencies, educators, school board members, legislators and media.
“As a regional service agency, we are positioned to help districts anticipate the impact of important education issues and help them respond in ways that effectively inform their school families and communities and garner support,” Ready said. “We provide leadership, counsel and technical assistance as needed. At times, we assist a single district with their unique needs, and other times we help facilitate common messaging for all of our member districts. Our team also strives to advance OAISD’s role and reputation in the education industry as we participate in a variety of multi-region and statewide initiatives.”
Like any area of public relations practice, school PR has its own set of challenges. Among them are the ongoing conversations nationally and locally about the quality of public education, in which perception and reality can be at odds. Also, Ready says it is an ongoing effort to educate key state legislative officials given term limits at the state level. Staying ahead of the message is difficult because of social media and the fact that education is a perennial hot topic.
“As PR professionals, we always try to be proactive in communication, however that’s becoming increasingly challenging in this era of technology and information at everyone’s fingertips, all of the time” Ready explains. “Education is an emotional topic because it involves youth. With social media, there’s a great deal of information flowing between people at any given hour, and there’s no shortage of misinformation. It can be challenging to dispel myths before they get wheels.”
One example of a current broad based PR initiative is “Ottawa Area Schools, Doing More. Together”, an effort led by Ready and her team at the ISD. It involves collaboration with traditional public schools, public school academies and faith-based schools. Through this initiative, they are sharing stories that highlight the high-quality education that’s taking place in local communities in an effort to build partnerships with business and community groups, elevate public perception, and increase community support for schools in the region.
“We use a fully integrated approach to building partnerships, creating awareness and fundraising,” Ready said. “We do presentations to Chambers, Rotary Clubs, businesses, economic development groups and other agencies, as well as community events. We publicize through social media, billboards, radio and television, YouTube pre-roll, sharing our written and video stories that are housed on the website www.doingmoretogether.org ” .
The campaign can also be followed at www.facebook.com/doingmoretogether and www.twitter.com/DMTOttawa
Congratulations to Michelle Ready for being named Communicator of the Year, and thanks to her as one more PR professional demonstrating the value of the public relations profession in another specific setting.
