We are adding a PR/Communications position at our school. Does your school have one? What are the typical duties? How much time does this person spend on the job? This person is responsible for e.g. updating the school's Facebook page of positive things going on throughout the school. Special classroom projects, service events, ... that type of thing. It is being offered as a supplemental position to our current faculty. I'm considering applying, but I have a lot of questions before making the decision.
I didn't see this until now. Yes, my school has a director as well as others who work in communications. That being said, my charter school is state-wide and has almost 15,000 students, so we need that kind of support.
My school is hiring someone for a similar position this year. It's brand new so I'm not sure what all the position entails.
The teacher who has the added responsibility of Tech Lead does this for our school. She does train a group of Grade 7 and 8 students so that they can be responsible for some of the tasks.
My former school required everyone to have Twitter names and tweet at least once a week. The media specialist (librarian) and tech specialist (who was shared) have always been in charge of anything tech-related.
The district my daughter goes to has a separate PR person. He's in charge of updating social media, taking pictures, uploading pictures onto the website, etc.
The photo part was the one I was wondering about ... I wouldn't be able to capture photos since I am tied to a classroom all day. However, if the teacher in charge of the activity took photos and shared them with me, it would be easy to write up a blurb and add the photos to all of our outlets. I didn't know if that put too much responsibility on others to do the photos and initial reporting. Some would jump on it, others wouldn't make the time.
Taking photos is one of the things that our Tech Team kids are assigned to do. They pick up cameras from the Tech Lead and then return them when finished. If it an event that is happening during class time, most teachers will give them permission to miss 5 or 10 minutes of class to go and take photos (with the understanding that anything missed must be made up). We had about 12 kids on the Tech Team last year, so it was rare that a couple couldn't be available.
I'm at a high school and I help with our PR. I create and/or proofread pieces (a paragraph or two each) from info that teachers, coaches, and the community send in that they'd like posted to our school website. I create about 300 pieces (and proofread at least 100 more) a year. I am expected to have pieces ready within about 24 hours. Sometimes this is tough, especially after a weekend of sports, when I get info for 4 or 5 pieces that need to go up ASAP, and I still have to teach my classes. People also contact me last minute to create/post something because they did not "manage their time" and expect me to quickly take care of posting it for them. Sometimes it's a pain, but I get a decent stipend for doing this, so I don't mind the time constraints. Our marketing director is in charge of pushing social media; he posts my work to the website, Facebook, and Twitter, and he also sends photos to an Instagram site. Since he does a lot of this from his phone, he has a quick turnaround, but he is tied to being available to do it quickly also (i.e. posting scores of game ASAP for parents and alumni). I would suggest you sit down with your admin and find out their expectations. How much are they expecting you to do? Do you have to write all the pieces and take the pictures? How quickly are they expecting turnaround? There are a lot of variables that may affect your time that you may want to take into consideration. Just know that if you do, expect people to ask you to do stuff at the last minute.
We have a position for this, but she works for the entire district. We are a small district with only 5 schools.
Our district (approx 8,000 students) has a PR person. Our school has a website which has been very rarely updated, but our new counselor plans to do that.
