Show Notes: 

Read A Seat at the Table to learn all of our findings about school comms. 

Sign up for the 2025 SchoolCEO Conference this fall to hear even more great original research!

Subscribe to our newsletter at https://www.schoolceo.com/subscribe-now/. 

Visit us at schoolceo.com and connect with SchoolCEO on LinkedIn or X/Twitter @school_ceo. If you have a story you’d like to share with the SchoolCEO team, email us at eileen@schoolceo.com or schedule a call.

SchoolCEO is powered by Apptegy, the maker of the leading K-12 communications and brand management platform.

Episode Transcript

Eileen Beard: Welcome to the SchoolCEO Podcast. I’m your host, Eileen Beard. In the last episode, I shared some findings from our original research project, “A Seat at the Table,” which we designed to better understand who school communicators are and how they work. We discovered that 47% of our respondents were the lone communicators for their school districts. Very many more worked on teams of only 2-3 people. If we refer back to the SWOT analysis we shared at the beginning of the season, it seems obvious that having a small or nonexistent team is one of the biggest weaknesses, or rather obstacles, many districts face. 

But that wasn’t our only big finding from A Seat at the Table. In launching this survey, we specifically wanted to know more about the working relationship between superintendents and school communicators. So today, I want to share those with you. Here’s Brittany Keil, the lead research author, reading some of the results: 

Excerpt from A Seat at the Table: https://www.schoolceo.com/a/a-seat-at-the-table-research-on-the-relationship-between-superintendents-and-school-communicators/

_________________________________________________________

Brittany Keil: When we designed this study, we first wanted to understand what factors make it more likely for communications professionals to have a seat at the table—regular access to the spaces and conversations where decisions are made. Then, we wanted to find out how different levels of access are related to various work outcomes. From our years of conversations with comms workers, we know that having a seat at the table is a critical component of proactively orchestrating strategic communications.

If a communications worker isn’t part of the executive decision-making about an initiative or incident, they often complain that they are responsible for cleaning up a mess they could potentially have helped prevent. As one respondent put it, “I need to be in the senior leadership meetings to hear the discussion taking place.  I pride myself on preventing us from pitfalls, so it is extremely frustrating when I’m called upon to bail us out of something when I was never included prior.”

We asked our respondents, “On a scale from 1-5, to what degree do you feel your district’s executive team gives you a ‘seat at the table’ when important strategic decisions are made for the district?” Because this is such a common concern among communications professionals, we assumed that most respondents would report that they generally didn’t have access or input when it came to strategic decision-making. But to our pleasant surprise, this wasn’t the case. About 64% of our participants responded that they “always” or “often” received a seat at the table, and 20% said that they “sometimes” did. Only 16% said that they “rarely have” or “do not have” a seat at the table.

Despite our expectation that most respondents would indicate a lack of access to the executive suite, it seems comms professionals across the board are quite positive about the level of access they’re afforded. But while the majority of comms directors have a seat at the table at least sometimes, those who don’t often have a few things in common. First, school communicators from districts with fewer than 1,000 students were less likely to be afforded access to leadership circles. Furthermore, communications professionals with more time in the field—those with 10-15 years of experience—were more likely to have a seat at the table than those with less experience. 

In considering these results, it’s important to think about which professionals aren’t given executive access. Small districts seem like a natural place for a communications professional—who should have more easy face time with their leadership team—to have a seat at the table. But that isn’t true, perhaps because superintendents and other executives are accustomed to doing the work themselves. And while it may not be surprising at the surface level for comms pros with less experience to be excluded from leadership decision-making, it’s important to consider what perspectives they could bring if they did have a seat at the table. 

Finally, survey participants generally responded positively when asked about their role in building their district’s communications strategy. When presented with the statement, “My superintendent and other executives look to me to help build our communications strategy,” a solid 48% of respondents selected “strongly agree.” Just under 13% of participants either disagreed or strongly disagreed that their executive team looks to them to build their district’s communications strategy. 

Regular face time with their superintendent is critical to a comms professional’s ability to align communication strategy to the broader district strategy. We asked a couple of questions to help us understand the nuances of school communicators’ working relationships with their superintendents:

“On a scale from 1-5, how well do you feel your superintendent understands the work you do in your role?”

“On a scale from 1-5, how accessible is your superintendent to you on a typical workday?”

In keeping with our respondents’ generally positive feelings about their superintendents, most participants felt that their superintendent understood their roles. About 38% of respondents believed their superintendent understood their role “very well,” and 31% selected “fairly well.”

Comms professionals who reported that their superintendents understood their roles were also more likely to have a seat at the table. In other words, superintendents who understand what school communicators do are more likely to show that they value the work by including their comms professionals in executive decision-making. Superintendents should pay special attention to this correlation. If no one on your district’s communications team is included in executive decision-making or cabinet-level meetings, how well do you understand what they do—or what they could do given the chance?

When it comes to a superintendent’s accessibility to their communications professionals, the numbers remained generally positive across the board. Nearly 77% of respondents indicated that their superintendents were either “extremely” or “very” accessible to them on a typical workday. Less than 10% of participants responded negatively—saying that their superintendents were either “not at all” or only “slightly” accessible to them.

_________________________________________________________

Eileen Beard: So, as you’ve just heard, we were pleasantly surprised by the close working relationship so many comms pros have with their superintendents. However, our respondents reported that their relationships with site-level staff were more complicated. 

_________________________________________________________

Brittany Keil: We began this report by exploring the concept of the single-person communications team. And while communications professionals generally feel supported and included by their superintendents, their relationships with the rest of their schools—including both leaders such as principals and individual contributors like teachers—look quite different. These relationships with school staff speak much more to the isolation that comms pros can feel in their work. One respondent explains: “It is very hard to tell the positive stories of our schools, teachers, and students when I am distanced from all of that in my district office.”

As we noted above, there’s a positive correlation between superintendents who understand comms professionals’ roles and those who include their comms workers in executive decision-making. This correlation could suggest a pretty logical conclusion—those who understand a role are more likely to value it. But how well do school staff besides the superintendent understand what comms workers do? The answers are a bit surprising.

First, let’s talk about principals and other leaders. Our participants were asked, “On a scale from 1-5, how well do you feel principals and other leaders in your district understand what you do?” Compared to how comms professionals feel about their superintendents’ understanding of their roles, the results here are pretty mixed. The most common response was “somewhat,” chosen by nearly 37% of our respondents. Only 13% of respondents selected “very well.”

 We also wanted to gauge how well staff members who aren’t in leadership roles understand comms professionals’ work. We asked respondents, “On a scale from 1-5, how well do you feel teachers and other staff not in administration understand what you do?” The answers to this question trended even more negatively, with only 3% of respondents choosing “very well.” Nearly 36% of respondents chose either “not at all” or “slightly,” suggesting that non-leadership staff don’t truly understand what communications professionals do—or what all they can offer. 

_________________________________________________________

Eileen Beard: There are many things school comms pros can do to, well, communicate more with principals but here are a few quick thoughts. First, if your super sends out an internal newsletter, ask them for a shout out. As this research makes clear, supers are already convinced of the great work you do. Second, principals in most districts have monthly or bimonthly meetings. So if you’re not already, ask if you can attend them. This is a chance to be visible and “prove your case” to them and it might even yield a good story or two you can share. Because third, everyone appreciates a good compliment. If you make a point of highlighting the work principals are doing, they’ll appreciate you. 

We’ll talk more about opening up that relationship with teachers and other school staff later, but that’s all for now. Stay tuned to the podcast because in the next episode we’ll share Part 3 of our findings from A Seat at the Table. 

Thanks for joining me.