Public Education and PR

Well, here goes my foray into the blogosphere. I created this blog for a class I’m taking at Kent State this semester – Public Relations Online Tactics. We can write about anything we want as long as it’s related to PR. This blog focuses on public education and how it uses (or doesn’t use) public relations.

So what is PR? Heather Yaxley blogged about the challenge of trying to answer that very question – it seems the answers vary depending who is asked. For my educational career, I’ve been taught to use the definition from the book, Effective Public Relations, which describes PR as a management function that builds and maintains relationships with the publics that an organization’s success and failures depend on. In other words, it’s relationship building – something that is critical to an organization’s success.

For public schools, relationships have to be built with many groups – teachers, students, parents, community members, etc. It takes time, effort, and energy to build those relationships. The subtitle for this blog is “more than just a winning football team.” For schools (and other organizations) just relying on your students (or employees) to be outstanding isn’t enough to develop a relationship.

For example, look at Louisville High School in Stark County. Last year the school received an “excellent” rating from the state of Ohio; that’s the highest rating a school can receive. But, despite that rating, the community still failed to pass Louisville’s levy.

Doing one thing well doesn’t automatically guarantee a relationship will be built. Communication, trust, and honesty are all key.

Photo courtesy of Louisville City Schools.