Show Notes: 

The SchoolCEO Podcast is written by Eileen Beard and produced by Tanner Cox.

Read School Shoutout: A Joyful Revolution from the Winter 2025 issue of SchoolCEO Magazine. 

This episode mentions Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara. 

For more school marketing strategies and insights, check out our free webinars at https://info.apptegy.com/events-and-resources.

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 with us!

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Episode Transcript

Hi everyone, welcome to the SchoolCEO Podcast. I’m your host, Eileen Beard. In episode 2, we shared a SWOT analysis of every school communications department in the country and determined you all have one big strength in common: you have so many amazing stories to tell. Last episode I told you about a school district in Georgia that built a slide that became the pride of its community and was a jumping off point for amazing stories: like the first day of school, when students arrived and were surprised to find a slide and quickly jumped on it. What an exciting way to start their first day! Or the story of an 84 year old community member who, after touring the new school building, became the oldest person ever to ride the slide. Or, because it deposited kids inside the library, stories about individual students discovering a love of reading. 

Today, I want to share another amazing story with you. It starts on a typical school day in rural Indiana. At Eastern Hancock Schools, a fifth grade class is studying the American Revolution when suddenly, a military officer in a tricorn hat rides by the classroom window on horseback. The officer is yelling loudly enough that the students can hear him. He’s yelling, “The British are coming! The British are coming!”  What the students are witnessing is none other than Paul Revere on his midnight ride. 

What a way to make a history lesson literally come alive, right? But it’s not that unusual here: Eastern Hancock Schools employs a full-time “joy integration specialist,” whose job it is to orchestrate experiences like this one to make education fun and memorable. I wrote a whole article about it in the What Parents Want issue of SchoolCEO Magazine, which I’ll link in the show notes.

Superintendent George Philhower got the idea to hire a joy integration specialist after reading the book, Unreasonable Hospitality, by Will Guidara. Guidara was a restaurateur who discovered that the restaurant business wasn’t really about the food, it was about creating memorable experiences for diners. 

Plus, Philhower realized that creating joyful, memorable experiences for students could actually spark real academic benefits for them. Kids go to school an average of 180 days per year. That’s a lot of the same, day after day. But moments like Paul Revere’s midnight ride jolts them out of autopilot. It makes them more engaged at school. 

A 2-story slide and a joy integration specialist have one big thing in common: they both generate stories. The point is, you can manufacture meaningful moments for school marketing. Sure, big events like football games or a school play are also great sources of content, but what stories can you capture that set your district apart? Can you find your own joy integration specialist to create…and capture moments. Even if it’s a parent volunteer? 

Alternatively, what props can you use to generate joy? Do you have a giant lego set which kids always flock to? What if you had a photo booth that teachers could use to reward students for completing difficult projects or turning their behavior around? What if students took their school pictures in the photo booth—giving picture day back to them? The point is, don’t just wait for stories to come to you. Create magnets that stories will stick to. It will make collecting stories easier on you.