How constituents and teachers perceive school board members often influences boards' accomplishments and efficiency. Guidelines for keeping board members' public image bright concern visibility, accessibility, and credibility. Some strategies for communication include a personal newsletter, e-mail, and making friends with the press. (MLF)

Effective superintendents recognize three key management precepts and their hidden rules. Administrators should avoid mixing emotion and logic, attending to detractors' emotional needs before presenting a differing viewpoint. They should be graceful under pressure, expect the unexpected, and build coalitions gradually, mindful of all community…

Presents eight winners of School Planning & Management's Community Relations Contest that produced ideas that other school districts can use to strengthen community/school coexistence. Papers cover such topics as improving communication between stakeholders, connecting with parents, and keeping the community informed during construction projects.…

Strategies to help garner community support in school technology growth or maintenance include the following: (1) consider a "current state of technology" report; (2) forget five-year plans; (3) develop annual technology reports; (4) look to your website; (5) seek constructive opportunities to share technology, and (6) show off best examples at…

Finds that journalism and mass communication programs appear to be entering another period of rapid enrollment growth, swept up by overall increases in enrollments at United States universities. Finds that only about four in ten of the journalism and mass communication programs report enrollments by race, suggesting many administrators are not…

Engages Silicon Valley as both a real site of high technology organizations and as a contested, symbolic site of cultural discourse. Develops five themes that indicate how communication scholars might engage Silicon Valley as a "noisy" site swarming with the interrelated dialects of organization and culture. Demonstrates how the…

Describes four ways that principals can provide leadership to overcome several school culture barriers to accountability: Be a champion for standards; emphasize learning, not performance; educate the public; and protect the things that matter. (PKP)

Many institutions of higher education want to strengthen the town-gown relationship, as well as increase students' access to community resources. Colleges and universities traditionally have connected with their surrounding communities in various ways, including through school placements, internships, field trips, volunteerism, service-learning,…

Based on extant pedagogical and research applications of fiction to communication studies, this essay argues that fiction not only engages students and entices them to read, but also builds critical thinking and writing skills. The author used Carl Hiaasen's "Native Tongue" and Christopher Buckley's "Thank You for Smoking" as "texts" in an…

This qualitative exploratory paper investigates whether communications/public relations is regarded by opinion formers in UK education as a strategic business activity or a tactical marketing tool. It is based upon depth interviews with 16 senior managers with strategic roles in UK higher or further education, or Government bodies, conducted…

Whole-system transformation is complex, yet possible. The potential for engaging in a successful transformation effort is greatly increased if a district's school public relations (PR) specialists play a strong supportive role in generating, framing, and delivering information to external and internal stakeholders about the need for change, the…

The task of achieving and maintaining good school community relations has never been easy, but new challenges bring with them a new urgency. Now, more than ever before, it is imperative for school districts to recognize and embrace community education. The community education philosophy strives to be all-inclusive. In a broad sense, it enables the…

Canadians live in a world of mega-spin where public relations corporate lobbyists play an increasingly larger role in news-making. To resist this trend, I have studied political ideology to understand the relationship between corporate media and systems of social, economic, and political power, and their hegemonic function, and indicate the bias…

Collaborations between law enforcement agencies and elementary and secondary schools focus on the provision of education to students, the safety and security of school property, and public relations efforts aimed at changing youths' attitudes toward the police both inside and outside of schools. The use of police officers in school settings…

One of ACTE's goals is to improve the image of career and technical education (CTE) through outreach to the media. As media relations manager, the author receives calls from reporters asking questions about the types of students who participate in CTE. Reporters often have a misconception that CTE students are troubled or "at the bottom of the…