Post by casey on Feb 25, 2010 10:49:27 GMT -6
D204 posts gains on getting message out
February 25, 2010
By KATHY CICHON kcichon@stmedianetwork.com
Chances are, if you've gone to a PTA, Rotary, Chamber or community event since July, you've bumped into Kathy Birkett.
According to district numbers, since the Indian Prairie School District 204 superintendent took the post last summer, the number of people who feel the superintendent is visible has shot up to 48 percent -- a dramatic increase from the 11 percent who thought the same in 2008-09. At that time, the district was led by Superintendent Stephen Daeschner.
"Our superintendent is highly visible. She calls it the PTA world tour that I think she's currently on," said Janet Buglio, director of communication services for District 204. "We think that's a really critical piece of the success of the communications program is community engagement through the superintendent."
Overall the district has seen an increase of residents who are pleased with the district's communication with residents. On Monday Buglio outlined how the district has improved its perception by the public in that area in the last four years.
In 2005 just more than 35 percent of those surveyed said the district did an excellent or above average job of keeping residents informed. In 2009, nearly 53 percent said the same, "which made us very, very happy," Buglio said.
Those four years also marked a shift in the ways residents get their information from the district, she said.
"In 2005 parents said their No. 1 source on the district was a combination of backpacks and newspapers, and you can see that shift to e-mail at 61 percent. In 2005 e-mail was only at 11 percent. So in four years that's significant growth in e-mail as a main source of information," Buglio said.
Currently the district is focusing on completing the upgrade of its Web site.
"We're now in the last six months of a two-year project on that," said Greg Gibson, Web services coordinator. So far two dozen of the pages have been redesigned, he said. Since July 2009, there have been 1.6 million visitors to www.ipsd.org, with 6.6 million page views of all its sites.
"The number of visitors to our sites is up about 15 percent over the last year. Since 2005 we've more than doubled our number of yearly visitors to our site," Gibson said.
In addition, the district has participated in several community outreach programs, including redeploying used computers to district students in need. Of the 550 collected, 156 were distributed, with plans in the works for the remaining computers.
"Our goal is to take those computers and present those to families in our district who have those needs," said Jason Altenbern, community relations coordinator.
A clothing drive collected more than 800 pieces of clothing for students in need, of which more than 500 were winter coats. And the district's holiday gift-giving project experienced a 10-fold increase, he said. Last year the district helped 22 families. This year it was more than 230.
"So we saw substantial increase in the community outreach ... not only is it goal related but it's also a great way to build visibility and rapport throughout the community," Altenbern said.
February 25, 2010
By KATHY CICHON kcichon@stmedianetwork.com
Chances are, if you've gone to a PTA, Rotary, Chamber or community event since July, you've bumped into Kathy Birkett.
According to district numbers, since the Indian Prairie School District 204 superintendent took the post last summer, the number of people who feel the superintendent is visible has shot up to 48 percent -- a dramatic increase from the 11 percent who thought the same in 2008-09. At that time, the district was led by Superintendent Stephen Daeschner.
"Our superintendent is highly visible. She calls it the PTA world tour that I think she's currently on," said Janet Buglio, director of communication services for District 204. "We think that's a really critical piece of the success of the communications program is community engagement through the superintendent."
Overall the district has seen an increase of residents who are pleased with the district's communication with residents. On Monday Buglio outlined how the district has improved its perception by the public in that area in the last four years.
In 2005 just more than 35 percent of those surveyed said the district did an excellent or above average job of keeping residents informed. In 2009, nearly 53 percent said the same, "which made us very, very happy," Buglio said.
Those four years also marked a shift in the ways residents get their information from the district, she said.
"In 2005 parents said their No. 1 source on the district was a combination of backpacks and newspapers, and you can see that shift to e-mail at 61 percent. In 2005 e-mail was only at 11 percent. So in four years that's significant growth in e-mail as a main source of information," Buglio said.
Currently the district is focusing on completing the upgrade of its Web site.
"We're now in the last six months of a two-year project on that," said Greg Gibson, Web services coordinator. So far two dozen of the pages have been redesigned, he said. Since July 2009, there have been 1.6 million visitors to www.ipsd.org, with 6.6 million page views of all its sites.
"The number of visitors to our sites is up about 15 percent over the last year. Since 2005 we've more than doubled our number of yearly visitors to our site," Gibson said.
In addition, the district has participated in several community outreach programs, including redeploying used computers to district students in need. Of the 550 collected, 156 were distributed, with plans in the works for the remaining computers.
"Our goal is to take those computers and present those to families in our district who have those needs," said Jason Altenbern, community relations coordinator.
A clothing drive collected more than 800 pieces of clothing for students in need, of which more than 500 were winter coats. And the district's holiday gift-giving project experienced a 10-fold increase, he said. Last year the district helped 22 families. This year it was more than 230.
"So we saw substantial increase in the community outreach ... not only is it goal related but it's also a great way to build visibility and rapport throughout the community," Altenbern said.
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