The Client

The Michigan Public Schools Partnership (MPSP) is a coalition of 21 school-related organizations and school districts committed to promoting the good news about Michigan public schools. The coalition included individual school districts and the following organizations:

American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Michigan Association of School Administrators (MASA)
Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB)
Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals (MASSP)
Michigan Education Association (MEA)
Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principals (MEMSP)
Michigan School Business Officials (MSBO)

The Opportunity

Working with the Michigan Public School Partners (MPSP) afforded me an opportunity to be involved in education advocacy again. The coalition’s mission was to promote the value of public education in Michigan and showcasing positive school stories to counter the negative image public schools have mistakenly been given. We discussed developing a website including social media branding and implementation.

The Solution / Challenges

Created a dynamic website on WordPress to highlight stories and regions. Designed logo and brand graphics to use on social media and in print for banners, labels, flyers, etc. Contracted to do the maintenance and updates monthly. MPSP had difficulty creating content and vetting stories, so it eventually did not have timely, relevant content. Without new content it was difficult to promote the cause and site in social media. It was decided to shutdown the website less than two years after it was launched.

Key Results

• Developed and launched Standing Strong for Public Schools website in 6 weeks

• Launched and administered social media accounts including Twitter and YouTube

• Collaborated with education coalition to further advocacy of public education

• Demonstrated website at press conference to school leaders and the media

• 956 new visits first month; averaged 250+ visitors per month thereafter

• New visitors averaged 69.7% of the visits

• MPSP did not have the capacity to feed the site with content, which ultimately led to it being shutdown