School PR Happy Hour

Justin is joined by Mitch Roush to talk podcasting in schools in 2023! Things may look a little different now than they did before the pandemic, but Podcasting is still a great opportunity to meet your parents where they are and share the story of your district!

Guest Host Julie Thannum, APR is joined by Melissa Robinette and Ashley-Michelle Thublin, APR to discuss different ways School PR pros can make an impact no matter where they are in their careers!

Justin is joined by Elishia Seals to talk about why the #SchoolPR community is SO special and unique!

Erin is joined by Tyler ISD's Jennifer Hines to talk about how Tyler ISD is doing Staff Recruitment differently. Listen to learn more about switching from a school to a business mindset when it comes to recruiting the best in brightest teachers and staff available.

Are the Robots taking over? Is Short-Form Video here to stay? What happens when no traditional media folks are hanging out in our districts anymore!? 2023 is shaping up to be an interesting year in the School PR world and Justin is talking about with Sarah-Jane Menefee from Rappoport Academy in Waco Texas!

SURPRISE! You didn't think we would go on full hiatus with all the craziness on social media! Justin is joined by Nicole Kirby, APR, Andrew Robinson, and Melissa McConnell to talk #AllTheThings Twitter. With the recent purchase and changes of late, brand managers, celebrities, and others are asking if Twitter is still the spot to share their stories. School PR is no different. We hope this discussion helps your district when analyzing where to share your story. During today's episode, guiding questions from the CESO Communication staff is mentioned. You can find this document here. Happy Holidays, School PR!

Justin is joined by one of his favorite people in the world, Tracy Jentz, APR to talk about mentoring and reverse mentoring. During this episode, you will learn about a new service that NSPRA offers that can help match you with the perfect mentor or mentee! We hope you enjoy this episode and we will be back on January 15 after a few weeks off with our families! Happy Holidays, School PR!

In the front half of the show, Erin sits down with Brian Bradley to talk about everything from idea generation to talent acquisition for his podcast 90 Degrees South. In the second half of the show, Justin and David Olsen chat about takeaways from that interview that pertain to School PR. We hope you enjoy our second "What Can We Learn From...." episode!

Justin is joined by Melissa Reese to chat about Instagram Reels, Parent/Student Engagement and a small NFL rivalry. (Go Cowboys!) This episode is perfect for the person who is a little skeptical of jumping into the TikToks or the Instagram Reels area of social media!

Erin is joined by CALSPR Executive Director and TWO-time author Trinette Marquis, APR to talk about her latest book, The Communicating Principal. Trinette will also share some of the different things she learned through her research for this book! This is a great conversation to share with your campus leaders!  This month's CESO Top Tip features tips on Crisis Communications from the CESO Communications Team. These tips can be downloaded by visiting bit.ly/CESOTopTip

October is National Principals Month and we are excited to have Dr. Ryan Daniel on this month to talk about her focus on communications in her campus community. From internal to external, Dr, Daniel is communicating at a very high level to keep her people informed and excited about the great things happening on her campus!  This month's CESO Top Tip comes with a downloadable pdf guide on the KDS Model. Head over to bit.ly/CESOTopTip  to get access to this tool!

Erin is joined by Mandee Puleo, APR to talk about communicating through tense situations both locally and nationally. With Mid-Term elections approaching dive into a communications approach, backed by the RPIE model, that can help unite your community during these potentially divisive times! 

This is the first episode in a series this season where we go outside of School PR and pick the brains of some of the brightest folks in other industries. Today, Travis Brown (@travisbrown on Instagram) is here sharing his expertise in content creation and workflow. The second half of the show features a conversation with show favorite Adam Harris on his takeaways from Travis' interview! Two Shows in One Day! Welcome to Season 4!

Erin and Justin are BACK for season 4 of School PR Happy Hour! This season is about learning from the best in brightest in School PR and industries outside of education. Today's show is a little life update with our hosts and forecasting this incredible season they have planned. We missed you all! We are so happy to be back!

Justin and Erin wrap up another excellent season of School PR Happy Hour. They talk about life updates, their favorite episodes and look ahead at the future of SPRHH. Thank you to our Happy Hour Friends that listened and joined us on the show this season, and a HUGE thank you to Class Intercom for their continued support of the show.  Get some rest #SchoolPR, it's summer!

For the last regular episode of the season, it's a meeting of the Erins!  Erin McCann talks with Erin Gregg of Lubbock ISD about creative comms strategy in a district with declining enrollment. Erin and Justin will have their final episode of the season with a season wrap up on June 1!

Justin is joined by Christy McGee, APR to talk about the important work of NSPRA's APR Committee. 

Join Mary Ellen Rowe as she and Erin talk through some early PR Practitioners and the lessons that we, as School PR Professionals, can learn from them.

Justin is joined by Klein ISD's Justin Elbert and Chelsea Ceballos to talk about their presentation from the 2022 TSPRA Conference about Hugging Your Haters! For me, this was the perfect presentation at just about the perfect time. Hope you enjoy!

It's been tough for School PR professionals lately and some of our peers are evaluating how they want to spend the remainder of their career.  The opportunities for growth, learning and change are endless if you are strategic about the choices you make.  Dr. Amanda Holdsworth, APR, joins Erin to talk about her story in #SchoolPR and why she made her choices along her journey.

Justin is joined by Dr. Jill Johnson from Class Intercom and they discuss the power of building students as content creators! 

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day! This year, we knew you needed to feel the love on a more professional basis.  Dr. Georgeanne Warnock, Superintendent of Schools in Terrell ISD and one of NSPRA's Superintendents to watch, talks with Erin about the value that School PR practitioners bring to the field of education.

This month's episode is a little different than past episodes. Due to moving, COVID and all the things... Justin JUST got internet in time to post this show. This month, we bring you a recast of the webinar Erin and Justin took part in with our friends from Class Intercom in December. Enjoy the show!

Welcome to 2022! We'd say "Wow!  What a year last year was,"but it's becoming redundant at this point.  Instead, School PR Happy Hour is looking forward to the work we may all be called to do this year - assist our HR departments in hiring great teachers. Jason Wheeler, CPC, from Garland ISD comes back to the show to share what he focuses on regarding recruitment marketing.

Justin is joined by Jake Sturgis APR to discuss the Voices Framework he and his team at Captivate Media are working on with districts around the country. This is an important conversation on a very timely topic! Just a reminder, we will be off the air until January 15, 2022 in order to rest up and recharge for the rest of the school year. Happy Holidays School PR

We love emergent media at School PR Happy Hour, and the chance to talk to one of the Virtual Reality pioneers was too good to pass up! Erin talks with Amber Krasinski about VR, AR and how School PR practitioners can work this media form into K12 schools

Justin and Becca Latham have a candid conversation about the importance of meeting people where they are in times of uncertainty. We hope you enjoy this episode!

We are obsessed with professional development at School PR Happy Hour, and Erin had the opportunity to sit down with one of the most fun and innovative Strategic Communication professors around. Dr. Lambiase heads up the Certified Public Communicator program at Texas Christian University and talks about the value in having a strong strategic plan.

Skyler Hefley from Tyler ISD joins Justin to talk about a variety of topics centered around Marketing and the Customer Experience. Skyler is a wrapping up his first year in School PR and has brought a new energy to this industry. We hope you enjoy meeting Skyler from Tyler!

We are starting off season 3 strong with School PR's greatest cheerleader!  Andrea Gribble, founder of Social Schools for EDU, joins Erin to talk all things social media and staying positive in an ever evolving world.

Erin and Justin kick off season 3 with a life check-in, season forecast, and a little bit of pandemic talk. We hope you are all taking care of yourselves and your loved ones during yet another stressful start to a school year!

Earlier this week, Erin and Justin jumped on Youtube and Twitter to recap and reflect on the second seasons of School PR Happy Hour. We want to thank Class Intercom for sponsoring the show this season. Our guest this year were amazing and we love all of our School PR Family! We will see you September 1 for Season 3!

What better way to close out season 2 than with an internal comms pro?  This year has been tough, and any true PR practitioner knows that your very first audience should be your internal audience. Cathy Kedjidjian, APR, joins Erin for the final content episode of Season 2 to talk Internal Comms, and making the HR department your BFF.

Justin is joined by one of his favorite people, Adam Harris for a very unscripted and unplanned conversation about our roles in School PR as we head into the home stretch of this school year. Hope you enjoy hearing from Adam as much as we enjoyed producing this episode.

In a world full of demands, our #SchoolPR superwomen are handling everything - at the office and at home.  Kristin Magette, APR, joins Erin to talk about the added pressures that we place on ourselves as women to be everything in the board room AND in our personal lives.

Krystyna Baumgartner, APR (@kmbaumgartner) joins Justin to talk about content calendars, content strategies, and everything else content. If you need to be more intentional and organized with your approach to content, this is a great conversation!

Happy Spring Break School PR! Our work is tough, and there never seem to be enough hours to accomplish all of our goals.  Despite our best intentions, we can't all be experts in everything. In this episode, we talk with Sarah Williamson, owner of SWPR group, an educational technology PR agency based on the west coast.  Sarah talks about the partnerships that can be built between School PR personnel and external agencies.

Nicole Lyons from Keller ISD (TX) joins Justin from the lobby of the hotel at the TSPRA 2021 Conference in Denton, Texas to discuss Keller ISD's amazing Campus PR Reps Program. These PR Reps assist the district communications team in telling the story of Keller ISD. Enjoy!

This month's episode is all about what it's like to be the KID of the School PR person. Hear from Fiona McCann and Kinleigh Dearing on what they think about late board meetings, football games and pandemics.  This conversation is a glimpse into the mind of two elementary students who, even through all the crazy, still love school... still love learning... and still have fun.

In this episode, Justin is joined by Nicole Kirby, APR who was recently elected as the President-Elect for NSPRA. The two discuss the importance of NSPRA and spend. quite a bit of time discussing what being a parent has taught them about SchoolPR. Enjoy and have a great week SchoolPR Family!

Across the world, people were delighted to say goodbye to the year 2020.  School PR was no exception!  As a welcome back from hiatus, Erin kicks off 2021 by talking with brand new NSPRA Executive Director, Barbara Hunter, APR.  It's going to be a great year School PR!

Justin is joined by Dane Dellenbach and they discuss the origin of #K12PRChat and also spend time talking about what it means to be a Strategic Leader. Dane talks about how seeing a tweet about someone working non-stop and it never being enough really put him into deep thought on the issues facing strategic leaders in education.

School PR is a welcoming community, but sometimes it can be intimidating if you're new.  New NSPRA board member, Joshua Sauer, APR, joins Erin to talk being a young leader, getting involved in the School PR community, and the beauty of telling your authentic story.

David O joins Justin to talk about being named to the 2020 Class of NSPRA's 35 under 35. David talks about the importance of self-care, emerging trends in School PR and also some of the obstacles he forecasts in the coming months and years as we continue to work through this pandemic. This was a very raw and uncut conversation. You will have to stick around until the end to see if David finally reveals what the O is David O. stands for...  #BattleWithBryton

Even in the best of times, PR professionals need a reminder to stop and prioritize themselves. 2020 is not the best of times!  Former PR pro, Mark Mohammadpour, APR, talks health, wellness, and most importantly - choosing ourselves.

If you haven't seen the back to school video "Kid Superintendent", it's time to go watch it and then come back to this episode to hear the creative journey that our friend Kristin Boyd Edwards just wrapped up. What started as a weekend project, lander Kristin and Reading Schools on Good Morning America. Justin talks creative process and handling going viral in the latest episode of School PR Happy Hour

No matter where you practice #SchoolPR, there's a model for a resource, or service center to help you out.  No one does this better than Rachel Frost, Chief Communications Officer at Region 10 in Texas. Thanks Rachel for all of the support you've provided to School PR Pros during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for reminding us that balance is possible!

Erin and Justin talk about the struggles of COVID-19 and deciding if the second season of SPRHH was going to happen. Welcome back Happy Hour Friends!

Whew... what a season! We have officially reached the end of Season 1 of SPRHH. It's time for us to take a short break and recharge some before we dive into creating another season of School PR Content. Before shutting down shop, Erin and Justin hosted an online live video recap of Season 1. This is the audio from that event. Have a great summer School PR, we will see you back here Sept. 1 with a brand new season!

Throwing content at the wall and hoping it will stick - it's the nightmare of professional communicators everywhere.  So what do you do, in an effort to create authentic engagement on your social platforms? Our final full episode of Season 1 features Justin Elbert from Klein ISD, a long-time school PR Practitioner with a speciality in engaging content and analytics.

Justin was joined by his new friend and keynote speaker Aaron Davis to talk about a variety of topics that School PR pros are facing during this COVID-19 pandemic. We hope you leave this episode encouraged and ready to finish this historic school year strong.

Join Erin as she talks with Julie Thannum, APR, about what Carroll ISD is doing to become cultural competent and became a leader among districts is choosing equity.

Justin is joined by Katie Test Davis from Forthright Advising to discuss stats and tactics public schools can use to win in the new competitive education industry. Katie shared a TON of resources during this interview and they can all be found by visiting forthrightadvising.com/schoolprhappyhour. Stay safe School PR!

In this stripped-down version of SPRHH, Justin, Erin and Ben Pankonin from Class Intercom talk about the effects of CoVid-19 on the School PR community. Our community is doing hard work and this conversation is a callback to a previous conversation about wellness.  This episode is about you, the professionals that listen and contribute to our show. We want you to know we see you and we want to support you however we can.

School PR is a rewarding business, but there's nothing easy about the work we do. We talk a lot about "finding our tribe," and knowing who to call in various situations.  What about having formal mentor?  Is it necessary?  Does it make a difference? In this episode, Erin talks with her own mentor, Ian Halperin, and discusses the benefits of having a mentor, as well as the need for reverse mentors.  Plus you get to hear about how Ian became Erin's mentor - lucky you!

Don’t worry! You’re still getting your scheduled content on the first and the fifteenth. Erin and Justin just want to say thank you!

Happy Valentine's Day Patrons of the Happy Hour. In this episode, we step outside of the industry to have an important conversation on the effect our jobs can have on the ones we love. Justin welcomed his wife, Caty Dearing, into the studio to talk School PR, the effects the job can have on a relationship, and even a little bit of the importance of incorporating teacher voice into our communications. You will realize very quickly that Caty is way smarter than Justin and should probably have her own educational podcast.

(Possible Trigger Warning) Crisis. The subject that School PR professionals seek endless training upon, consider themselves experts and prepare materials for.  No matter how much you prepare, the true nature of a crisis, is there is always something you don't know. In episode 12, Kim Cathey from Floresville ISD talks with Erin about two severe crisis situations she guided her district through - both natural and manmade disasters. This episode contains serious material and addresses student death.  If this is a trigger for you, you may wish to skip this episode.

Our jobs are to tell the good stories that are going on in the classrooms, but what are we doing about public education as a whole.? Join Justin as he talks with Dr. Richard Long from Learning First Alliance and Rich Bagin, APR from NSPRA about ways School PR professionals can step up and speak out for public schools. Public Schools Week is February 24-28... have you signed the pledge to support public schools? Learn how in episode 11.

Happy New Year School PR! A new year is filled with new energy and new opportunity.  In this special New Year's Day episode, Erin talks with School PR Rookie JP Prezzavento  on breaking into the industry and finding your niche in school PR.

We are storytellers, but what makes a great story? This "extended" episode of School PR Happy Hour dives into everything VISUAL storytelling. Tove Tupper, Assistant Director of Communications for Highline Public Schools in Washington and Derek Duncan, Digital Communications Coordinator at Parkway Schools in St. Louis join Justin to talk about visual storytelling. 

As we move into the Holiday season, it feels appropriate to take some time to touch on an issue that has been a hot button in the K12 PR world.   How good are you, as a practitioner of School PR, at taking time to take care of yourself, or to check in internally to make sure you are achieving balance in your life? In this episode, Erin talks with two dynamic thought leaders who are pioneering this conversation on a national level.  Join Shawn McKillop APR, and Kristin Magette APR for an episode you don't want to miss. 

The most important voices in our district are the kids walking the hall. What if we, as storytellers, found unique ways for those students to be the storytellers. Brenda Drake, PIO for Montgomery County Public Schools is doing just that through her Ambassador program's Instagram responsibilities. 

According to the New York Times best selling author Brene Brown, embracing Vulnerability is the key to unlocking greater clarity in our potential. Adam Harris, Head of Storytelling for Arlington Heights School District, feels exactly the same way.  In episode 6, Adam shares how he uses vulnerability to increase his storytelling for his district built trust with his audiences, and challenge the status quo.

Lesley Bruinton, APR, the Coordinator of Public Relations for Tuscaloosa Schools in Tuscaloosa Alabama and NSPRA President-Elect joins Justin to talk about the important role that strategy plays in the day to day operations of a School Communications Plan.  Whether you are a strategy pro or if it is something you have never really jumped into, this episode will leave you with tips and motivation to really examine the WHY in your daily work processes.

Bond.  It's many School PR professional's favorite 4 letter word. Bonds are a necessary tool to achieve the needed funding for construction and other capital projects in school districts.  They can be stressful, intimidating and heartbreaking.  They can also be points of success to rally community members to come out and support public schools.  Negotiating the political landscape can be tricky, and explaining tax increases and decreases can sometimes feel like you're explaining complex math that you barely understand yourself. In episode 4, Erin talks with Corey Ryan, Chief Communications Officer in Leander ISD, near Austin, Texas.  In his career in school PR, Corey has worked on multiple bonds, some with success, and some with learning opportunities.  Join us, as Corey shares his lessons learned and interjects a few Seinfeld references for good measure.

Accreditation in Public Relations.  A.P.R.  Sounds scary right?  Maybe intimidating?  Totally Awesome? Many School PR professionals dream of one day adding those 3 letters after their name.  Having your APR means that you are recognized internationally as holding credentials that certifies your drive, professionalism and principles.  Your APR sets you apart from your peers and helps to position you as both a leader and a mentor. Tracy Jentz, APR, is the Communications and Engagement Coordinator for Grand Forks Public School in North Dakota.  In this episode, she talks with Justin about the journey towards earning her APR pin.  According to Tracy, having an APR changes everything!

In the age of Social Media Marketing, and Big Brother putting ads in your newsfeed of the couch you just looked at on a different website ten minutes ago, School PR professionals would be crazy not to take advantage of an opportunity for a more strategic approach to marketing their schools. Many Public Schools are finding themselves in the midst of a battle of school choice.  In Episode 2, Erin talks with Jason Wheeler of Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD in Texas about how to strategically market your school district and take advantage of the micro influences you have in your communities

Many of the School PR professionals that we have had the opportunity to connect with over the creation of this project come from districts that have only one or two people working in their communications department. With everything that we, as School professionals, need to share on a daily basis, we need to help each other out!  In the debut episode of School PR Happy Hour, we chatted with NSPRA Scholarship winner Jessica Johnston, from Brenham ISD in Brenham, Texas. After spending time as a classroom teacher and a very successful Instructional Technology Specialist, Jessica moved into the #SchoolPR world. Jessica was awarded a conference scholarship for NSPRA 2019 and shares her experiences in D.C. as well as her appreciation of the sharing spirit of our community.  Jessica shares her resources and content through her personal blog at SchoolPR365.com. Enjoy the first episode of SPRHH and be sure to connect with Jessica to further this conversation!

Coming Soon - School PR Happy Hour Podcast is a casual, twice-monthly, chat with friends and other School PR professionals about relevant and timely topics. Think of us as an extension of the conversations that motivate us when we attend our annual state and national conferences.