Breaker Society

In March 2019, Columbus City Schools welcomed Dr. Talisa Dixon as the 21st Superintendent and Chief Executive Officer of Ohio's largest school district. Starting on her first day, she launched the "Mapping our Success 100 Day Entry Plan" to spotlight the first 100 days of her administration and to emphasize an extensive outreach effort to hear from stakeholders - students, staff, families, partners, and community - about the future of the District.

More than six months into her term she returns to the Breaker Society podcast to share the challenges and successes of her experiences. In this episode, we delve into how to approach changing the culture and building a strategy for the future. We talk about leadership and what drives Dr. Dixon in her daily pursuit to be a model urban school district nationwide.

Breaker Society is sponsored by Smore, professional communication tools for professional educators. Visit Smore online at http://smore.com/breaker

Breaker Society is sponsored by #SocialSchool4EDU, helping schools tell their stories through social media. Visit #SocialSchool4EDU online to learn more about their year-round professional development and membership program. https://www.socialschool4edu.com/

Breaker Society is a production of Purposeland, a strategic and creative consultancy serving clients who serve students. Visit Purposeland online at http://purposeland.us

In episode seven we are shifting from the world of K-12 education and moving into postsecondary, though this conversation very much impacts the work being done in K-12 schools with career development and exploration, something all schools need to focus on more. Shane has a conversation with Dwight Heckelman, the founder of GROOVE U, a two-year music career program offering a diploma in the music industry. Dwight has over 20 years of experience in nearly every facet of the music industry. While attending Belmont University, he worked as a Field Marketing Representative at Capitol Records (Everclear, Jimmy Eat World) and after graduation, he worked as an engineer/songplugger, wrote the technical column for Music Row Magazine, and then as a producer and went on to become President of AudioStream — a multimillion-dollar independent record label. In 2005 he left the corporate world for academia, where he designed, implemented, and chaired the Music Management program at Hocking College. Dwight then served as the Career Development and Job Recruitment Coordinator at the prestigious Berklee College of Music.

And one day in 2009, he just decided to start his own school called GROOVE U, where they boast a 93% job placement in-field among all its graduates. Dwight is all about positive disruption in education, something, in my opinion, we all should be practicing, and we talk a lot about that in this episode. We recorded this episode on the Groove U campus right in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.

Visit GROOVE U online at https://www.grooveu.edu

Breaker Society is sponsored by Smore, professional communication tools for professional educators. Visit Smore online at http://smore.com/breaker

Breaker Society is sponsored by #SocialSchool4EDU, helping schools tell their stories through social media. Visit #SocialSchool4EDU online to learn more about their year-round professional development and membership program. https://www.socialschool4edu.com/

Breaker Society is a production of Purposeland, a strategic and creative consultancy serving clients who serve students. Visit Purposeland online at http://purposeland.us

Effective and meaningful communications in a school district are not something of random chance. Instead, for an organization to be effective at communications, it must be done in a comprehensive, strategic, year-round manner. For schools, this is accomplished best when aligned with the school system’s goals. However, this can be a lot harder to accomplish than it sounds. For the team at Park Hill School District in Kansas City, Missouri, it has taken some time to accomplish, but their work and commitment to strategic communications using research, planning, implementation, and evaluation is helping them stay focused on what matters most in their organization. In this episode, Nicole Kirby, APR, (Director of Communications) shares how her team works hard to stay focused on their annual communications plan. Consider this episode a “workshop” of sorts to give you the basics of how to streamline your processes and to create systems to advance a thoughtful approach to school communications. We are also joined by members of Nicole’s team, including Samantha Fitzgerald (Communications Specialist), Matthew Kenright (Communications Specialist), and Paul Lewis (Video Technology Specialist). They provide tips and advice for how other schools can effectively build a strategic communications program to be proud of.

View the Park Hill School District’s NSPRA Gold Medallion-winning communication program: https://www.nspra.org/sites/default/files/award-submissions/gold-medallion-19_mo-park-hill-school-district.pdf

Visit Park Hill School District online: https://www.parkhill.k12.mo.us/

Breaker Society is sponsored by Smore, professional communication tools for professional educators. Visit Smore online at http://smore.com/breaker

Breaker Society is sponsored by #SocialSchool4EDU, helping schools tell their stories through social media. Visit #SocialSchool4EDU online to learn more about their year-round professional development and membership program. https://www.socialschool4edu.com/

Breaker Society is a production of Purposeland, a strategic and creative consultancy serving clients who serve students. Visit Purposeland online at http://purposeland.us

Marketing can sometimes be a dirty word in public schools as many leaders in school districts assume it means “sales”. However, marketing is becoming a much more prominent part of the education sector as competition from all different kinds of educational choices is forcing public schools to re-think how they enroll and retain students. Put quite frankly, your school is not the only show in town anymore, and so if you’re not marketing your district, you are getting left behind. In this episode by Cara Adney from Meridian Technology Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Jason Wheeler from Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD in Carrollton, Texas, and Lori Perlow from the Camden County ESC in Clementon, New Jersey. All three have great perspectives and advice when it comes to the topic of marketing in schools. We discuss the differences between marketing and PR, how schools should be marketing, why it matters so much, and much more.

Breaker Society is sponsored by Smore, professional communication tools for professional educators. Visit Smore online at http://smore.com/breaker

Breaker Society is a production of Purposeland, a strategic and creative consultancy serving clients who serve students. Visit Purposeland online at http://purposeland.us

Episode four of season three features Beth Probst, owner of At The Core, LLC, and Alicia Mowry, the public information officer for the Delaware Area Career Center in Central Ohio. Beth is making her second appearance on the podcast (season one, episode one) and joins Alicia to discuss how they built a partnership to engage parents and the community to help overcome a long-standing stigma--in this case the stigmas that have long stuck to career-technical education--and increase enrollment and the image of the Delaware Area Career Center. This conversation showcases how schools can reach unreachable audiences and create influencers in your community and can be applied to any educational organization with a problem to solve. These two have been perfecting the social science behind combining grassroots efforts with technology to engage their community and it is paying off. They are “feeding” parents with information, resources, and a connection to something they haven’t necessarily been exposed to, and this grassroots, personalized effort is helping to solve the problem of parents who are starved for knowledge as to how best prepare their students for life after high school.

Visit At The Core online at https://www.gettingatthecore.com/

Visit the Delaware Area Career Center at https://www.delawareareacc.org/

Breaker Society is a production of Purposeland, a strategic and creative consultancy serving clients who serve students. Visit Purposeland online at http://purposeland.us

In episode three of season three, Shane talks with Dr. R.J. Webber (Assistant Superintendent of Academic Services) of Novi Community School District in Novi, Michigan. While Dr. Webber works every day to create innovative learning experiences for the students in his district, it is the reason why he does it that stands out--to create equity in opportunities for each and every student. In this episode, we have a powerful conversation about how Dr. Webber has championed student voice, mental health awareness, and social justice in his school district. Dr. Webber is also joined by George Sipple, the district’s marketing and public relations specialist, as we also get into the importance of sharing the stories of innovation and academic equity happening in schools.

Visit Novi Community School District online: https://www.novi.k12.mi.us/

Check out some of the awesome things Novi is doing for students:

Novi/Macy’s student entrepreneurship partnership video: https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/392299943-video

Mindfulness to every second grader video:

https://www.wxyz.com/news/novi-community-school-district-is-teaching-mindfulness-to-second-graders-to-help-them-focus

Breaker Society is sponsored by Smore, professional communication tools for professional educators. Visit Smore online at http://smore.com/breaker 

Breaker Society is a production of Purposeland, a strategic and creative consultancy serving clients who serve students. Visit Purposeland online at http://purposeland.us