Schools bank on good publicity
City system seeks to boost image
(Omission: A photo caption accompanying a story in Friday's City & Region section about Boston public schools attempting to boost their image neglected to credit the photographer. The picture was by Mori Insinger.)
The Boston public school system is banking on a public relations makeover, which will cost several hundred thousand dollars, to boost its image and attract more families and investors to the school system.
Professional portraits of teachers, principals, and coaches nurturing students will appear on a new calendar and other brochures next school year. Recruited ambassadors, including students and parents, will share their success stories with the public. Others will be encouraged to e-mail testimonials to a new address: goodnews@boston.k12.ma.us.
The School Committee, after years of avoiding it, will air its meetings and other programs about city schools on cable television.
Next week, the School Committee, which is searching for a replacement for outgoing Superintendent Thomas W. Payzant, plans to approve the changes as part of a broader plan to better communicate to the public.
The school system expects to spend at least $521,753 on communications next school year, 69 percent more than it spent this school year.
The additional money, which includes private grants, will pay for cable television, the salaries of two additional staff members hired in April, and other initiatives, school system officials said. They did not have information yesterday on what percentage of the costs would be paid by donors and by taxpayers.
School system officials, who unveiled their strategy this week, said they want to challenge outdated and inaccurate information about city schools by shining a spotlight on the district's many successes. They hope doing so will give more families confidence in the system. Enrollment in the system of 57,900 students is projected to drop by more than 1,000 students next year.
``More often than not, they read bad news rather than good news stories," said Elizabeth Reilinger, chairwoman of the School Committee. ``We need to get everybody bought in, and to understand what's going on in the Boston public schools."
But some community members, while they support more public information about schools, fear the proposed efforts could veer into propaganda.
``You want people to be cheerleaders for their schools," City Councilor John Tobin said. ``But this is not Moscow. This is the city of Boston."
Chris Horan, the school system's chief communications officer whose position was created to head the new effort, said the school system has missed many opportunities to spread good news, resulting in a disconnect between people's experiences and the community's perceptions of city schools.
To be effective, Horan said, the system realizes it must share the good news , as well as the challenges.
``We're trying to figure out how to strike that balance," Horan said.
As part of its strategy, the school system also has hired an outside firm to track local and national media coverage.
The plan calls for the district's communications staff to ``manage negative stories" and better respond to such coverage with letters to the editor, for example, to ``set the record straight."
``We have to be sure that it is substance rather than spin," said John Mudd, a senior project director at Massachusetts Advocates for Children who supports the school system's efforts.
The school system will gauge the effectiveness of its communications plan next year by hiring a private company to conduct focus groups and annual surveys.
City councilors had criticized the school system for not airing its meetings on cable television, a common practice nationally.
Reilinger said it took several years to broadcast meetings because she wanted to give the school system a more ambitious television presence, via BPS-TV, a series of programs about Boston public schools that will include work produced by students.
Boston's efforts are not unusual among large urban school systems, and are wise, said Glenn Koocher , executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees.
Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com. 