2016 Back to School Communications Toolkit

The back-to-school season is extremely busy for all in the education community. We at the Learning First Alliance hope to support you during this time in one critical area: communications.

At a recent gathering that included school board members, parents, teachers, school counselors, principals, superintendents and others, these practitioners told us that all in the education community should:

• Speak collectively about key issues such as college and career readiness
• Discuss publicly the great things happening in their classrooms and schools
• Emphasize the important role that each member of the education community plays

To assist the community in this endeavor, we created Working Together for Student Success: A Back-to-School Communications Toolkit. We hope that you find the resources it contains to be useful. Please tailor them to fit your context, or use them as inspiration while you consider the messages you want to send this back-to-school season.

The toolkit includes:

• Welcome letter from LFA Executive Director Richard Long introducing the resource
        - Video discussing the toolkit’s goals and content
        - About the Learning First Alliance

• Infographic that highlights the wide variety of education professionals needed to move to college and career readiness for all (also available as a jpg)
        - Suggestions for how to use the infographic

• Talking points to help all members of the education community speak with one voice

     Resources based on these talking points:

• Template opinion-editorial
• Template news release
• Template back-to-school letter to families
• - FAQs on back-to-school letters for families
• Template back-to-school letter to staff
• Blog prompts
• Sample social media language
• - Tips on using social media

     Additional resources

• National back-to-school fact sheet that offers key statistics about public education for the nation as a whole
• Template fact sheet to shine a light on the great things happening in your school or district
        - Suggestions for how to use the factsheet

We grant permission to all educators to use and reproduce the materials provided and to tailor them to fit individual needs.

Questions? Contact info@learningfirst.org.