Salina Public Schools has earned a Gold Medallion from the National School Public Relations Association for a 2022 campaign to re-enroll local students whose families had made other schooling choices during the Covid pandemic.  

“It is wonderful to see a school board and district invest in communication to engage their community,” said KASB executive director Brian Jordan. “From the district office to school principals’ offices, Salina leaders have listened to the community and reconnected with families after a time with so much change and uncertainty. Their strategic communication work is bringing in-district students back into their schools, which helps create a bright future for everyone involved.” 

In late 2021, Salina Superintendent Linn Exline was analyzing enrollment data and found that the district had lost some 500 students since the fall of 2019. Knowing the loss was connected to families’ Covid decisions, Exline and the board challenged the district’s communication team to innovate.  

“I was genuinely concerned about the students who had left,” Exline said. “I worried thinking about any child falling behind in learning, and I knew some of our former students must have been missing their friends at school. We sure were missing our students.” 

District communications director, Jennifer Camien, explored contracting with a communication firm to quickly increase her team’s capacity to do strategic work. The district chose CEL Marketing PR Design to develop a comprehensive enrollment marketing campaign, and Camien quickly began collaborating with project lead Kristin Magette, APR, as well as CEL’s graphic designers and digital strategist.  

By March 2022, the partnership was full steam ahead conducting research. Salina’s enrollment marketing plan would be finalized several weeks later and included website and social media, internal communication, storytelling, outreach and word-of-mouth strategies, as well as a broad range of family and community engagement opportunities. 

Salina’s campaign was built around the theme “Greatness Grows Here,” highlighting the potential for learning, involvement, leadership and success that Salina Public Schools offers each student. Results after the first year of implementation included 4% growth in new student enrollment and re-enrollment of 10% of the students who had withdrawn during the pandemic. The district also achieved its goal of filling all preschool classrooms for 2022-2023, strengthening future enrollment and student success. 

“Looking back over this campaign, and especially the relationship pieces,” Camien said, “I am very proud of the work that began in 2022 and continues now. We have truly put our brand promise into action, and that is something special. It makes a difference.” 

A few months after handing over the enrollment campaign for the Salina team to implement, Magette joined KASB as Assistant Executive Director of Communication and Engagement. In this new role, she provides communication services and expertise directly to Association members across the state. She also leads the KASB’s communication and engagement team. 

“We are proud to have a communication professional on KASB’s team who truly understands our members and the work they do,” Jordan said. “Kristin served as communication director in the Eudora School District for more than 12 years and worked for CEL serving several other school districts. She has supported school board members, superintendents and principals, and she knows how to engage best practices of communication and engagement to build trust with employees, families and community members.” 

After presenting at the NSPRA Seminar in St. Louis, Camien and Magette will share lessons learned from the award-winning campaign with KASB members at Summer Leadership Institute in July and the KASB Convention in November. Their session, Wish You Were Here, focuses on the relationship strategy from the campaign, including simple steps a district of any size or shape can use to help bring students and families back. 

“It’s incredibly rewarding to have been part of the team that won this Gold Medallion,” Magette said, from the Salina district team to my former colleagues at CEL. It has been a joy to see the collaboration unfold and exciting to watch the results of strategic work add up. I look forward to sharing some of the lessons we learned with KASB members in the coming months.” 

The NSPRA Gold Medallion Award is the top national competition in North America recognizing superior school public relations programs and campaigns grounded in strategic communication best practices. Entries are judged on their use of communication and social science best practices; winning entries are selected based on a level of superiority when compared to other entries. Gold Medallion campaigns serve as a model for other school systems to replicate.