Projects
Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to contribute to a variety of projects aimed at developing and expanding our corporate brand. These initiatives have included organizing annual employee events, workshops, and campaigns, as well as building and enhancing our social media presence, creating new websites, producing brochures and other publications, and handling photography and video production. Below are a few examples of these projects.
Celebration of Excellence
Annual Employee Celebration
In the past teachers were honored at a banquet and support staff was honored at a separate event. In order to save money, the support staff event was taken away. The Celebration of Excellence was created in 2017 as a way to bring all employees together as a team. The event included “Exemplars” that were nominated by their peers based on “The Mishawaka Way”, outstanding comedic entertainment, great food, a beautiful facility, and an amazing experience seeing colleagues cheering for each other.
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After the COVID pandemic, we evolved this event to be a more relaxed outdoor event for 2021 and 2022 where employees and their spouses/guests came together to enjoy great food, be entertained by talented bands, all in a closed to public venue. Where else could a fun night take place than the Potawatomi Zoo.
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For 2023 and 2024, we decided to combine the traditional Celebration of Excellence feel from 2017 with a relaxed atmosphere like we had at the zoo by hosting a mini Trivia Party. This ended up being a fun evening of competition, delicious food, a new venue, and most importantly, a lot of cheering for our colleagues for their accomplishments.
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The goal of the event each year is to celebrate all employees for their contributions to excellence, to relax, and just have fun!
Welcome Back to School
Annual Magazine Produced for Families
With having over 5,000 students throughout nine different schools, we have to look at creative ways to communicate with all of our families, especially when it comes to back to school information. Even though we communicate information via email, social media, text, and our website, it felt like a piece was missing. The solution - a one-stop place for the most important back to school information.
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This solution started our annual Welcome Back to School magazine. It is a printed magazine mailed to each household of our students. To ensure no one is left out, we will also send out a Spanish version in 2023 for our ENL (English as a New Language) families. The magazine is full of information like the school year calendar, open houses, daily schedules, immunization requirements/clinics, school supply list, annual enrollment documents, food service information, textbook fees, and before/after school programming. Whether families have a child in elementary, middle or high school, they can find what they need in one place.
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The investment of printing and postage has proven a great ROI with feedback from families on the ease of having all the details they need in one place. In addition, the reduction of stress by not having to search for information, parents/guardians feel more confident and prepared for the first day of school.
Technology & Integration
Magazine Produced for Staff and
the Community
The funding from the Operating Levy referendum in 2016 gave us the opportunity to not only add technology equipment, but we gained access to a large amount of educational software. We needed a way to show how the technology and software is being integrated into the classroom for the benefit of the students. Out of this came our “Technology & Integration” magazine.
This is a quarterly publication that shows the community their tax dollars at work beyond the basic device in a student’s hands. We also utilized the magazine to showcase our amazing teachers and how they have embraced the use of technology in the classroom.
Social Media
Connecting to the Community
The Board of School Trustees adopted a social media policy in 2014. I was assigned the responsibility of establishing a social media presence. At that time, Facebook was the leading social media platform and that is when the journey began. Facebook continues to be a great source for staff, the community, and especially parents/guardians and family members to stay in the know of what is going on at School City of Mishawaka.
In March 2016, we launched @scmschools on Twitter. This added another layer to reach out to our audience. Twitter has become a place for educators to share information and resources as well as be a part of telling our story.
All of our schools launched Facebook and Twitter accounts in the fall of 2016. This has been a slow process because of adding another step to buildings in their already busy day. Each location has done a great job of assigning staff to post information and be the resource for their building.
Website Design
Bringing a Modern Look to the Community
The corporation website was in need of updating. It had become a place of links to PDF documents and long lists of text. Since this was often the first impression of the corporation, I was given the responsibility of updating to a classy, professional, and useful website.
My search began for a reliable host and low maintenance content management system that we could customize so we didn’t fall into the trap of looking like the basic school website. After a lot of research, webinars, and reviews, I brought a recommendation to our School Board to go with Blackboard. They offered everything that we needed plus more. The best feature was that we basically start with a blank slate and create our own custom website.
This was also a great time to brand a new URL. The original web address was scm.mishawaka.k12.in.us. This was hardly memorable and didn’t capture who we are. We can now be found at www.mishawakaschools.com.
The launch of the corporation website returned amazing results. Even though it’s been over six years since the debut, we still get positive feedback on the ease of finding information, the additional content, and overall look. Below is what the original website looked like and what we have created.
Just like with technology, website designs and functions are ever changing. Sometimes that includes website providers merging with other providers. This is the case with our current provider, Blackboard. They were purchased by another K-12 targeted company called FinalSite. With this merger came the opportunity to move our current website to the FinalSite platform, which allows us to bring a fresh look and simpler web building tools to MishawakaSchools.com. I was able to negotiate a five year pricing contract that will save our school corporation approximately $20,000. The new website was launched in November 2024.
In addition to this new platform, I was able to build an intranet that will be tied to our corporation Google account rather than a specific website platform. This means in the future, we will not have to rebuild all of our internal documentation and communications if another platform is used. The most beneficial part of the intranet is removing internal information from the MishawakaSchools.com website so our audience has an easy experience navigating to the areas of interest they are seeking.
Email Marketing
Email Campaigns for Internal and External Communications
Anyone can send an email. But, when you can send an email that is simple to read, appealing to look at, and leaves the audience feeling like they learned something new, then you have reached your goal.
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To advance our communication efforts, we added Constant Contact to our communication toolbox in 2018. We have used this tool ever since for both internal and external communications. From weekly, monthly, and special event information, we are able to reach different audiences with one tool.
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The three main uses for internal communications is for a weekly staff newsletter, monthly labor management meeting minutes, and targeted health and wellness campaigns.
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In addition, Constant Contact is used to reach not only staff but our entire community with a publication called the School Board Scoop. After each School Board meeting, the information presented and board approved is put together in a simple newsletter format to keep our stakeholders current on what is going on throughout the corporation.
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All of the above communications have been a great value add to ensure we are transparent with our staff and the community.
Video Production
Bringing Stories to Life
A good picture and well written sentence can speak volumes, but sometimes a story needs a little extra to have an even bigger impact. That is where the art of video production comes into play. Whether it's a 30 second clip, one minute short story, three minute mini documentary, or even a simple GIF, the reach can be far more than ever expected. Below are a couple of examples of videos I created to be used for very different purposes.
UNITED WAY CAMPAIGN
Our annual internal United Way Campaign needed some help. The typical campaign was an all staff email of a LOT of text. I was able to use my video skills to create an emotional video showing our staff how their contributions directly impact our students. We not only surpassed our goals, we amazed United Way and grew our partnership even stronger. Through this journey, School City of Mishawaka was named The Team That Makes it Happen, was honored as the Company of the Year, and also received recognition as the Most Influential Community Partnership.
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TEACHER OF THE YEAR
We love to celebrate our employees. One of the biggest celebrations is our Teacher of the Year. I have the privilege of capturing the moment the teacher is surprised with this high honor. The video below shows how an entire school, even the band, get in on the celebration.
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CONSTRUCTION & SAFETY
Each year we have a "Back to School Celebration" where all 700+ employees are invited for breakfast and a short program to kick-off the new school year. This is an opportunity to update staff on what has been done over the summer plus set a good tone for the start of the year. A good way to do this is with videos. Sometimes, simple videos that focus on the visual can leave a lasting impact. The sample below is one of the videos used to show the incredible amount of work that occurred over the summer months.
United Way Campaign
Teacher of the Year
Construction & Safety
Marketing Plans
Targeted Campaign to Attract New Families
Each year I am responsible for our Out of District Marketing campaign. This entails working with a public relations and brand building firm to utilize six marketing platforms to reach our targeted audience.
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A marketing plan is presented to the School Board for approval of the funds to cover the cost of the marketing campaign along with the project timeline. A follow-up presentation is shared with the School Board highlighting the ROI from the campaign.
