Battle Creek Public Schools (BCPS) is a school district in central Michigan that shares a hometown with Kellogg’s Cereal and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF). With the district facing racial equity issues, declining enrollment and negative reputational challenges, WKKF in 2017 granted $51 million to BCPS to improve academic achievement, equity, and opportunities for students to thrive. To make positive changes sustainable, BCPS needed to win back enrollment from families who had fled to neighboring districts under Michigan’s “schools of choice” laws. I partnered with BCPS for over six years, supporting communication around the district’s educational transformation efforts and building communications capacity among staff. After two years, the foundation ceased funding our team’s support and the district chose to sustain it directly. Through ongoing counsel and coaching, I helped BCPS leaders see rapid, clear, and transparent communications as essential to building trust and ultimately winning families back to the district. 

Just a few of our other accomplishments with BCPS include:

• Helped hire, onboard, train, and mentor an in-house communications manager.
• Implemented a community and staff newsletter system which increased awareness of positive news.
• Launched an all-new district website.
• Placed dozens of stories in the local media resulting in increased awareness of the great new opportunities for students across the district.
• Ran digital, radio, and out-of-home ad campaigns to share announcements and drive enrollment, garnering millions of impressions and helping drive district enrollment goals.
• Promoted consistent and transparent internal communications to improve staff morale and reduce turnover.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, arguably the hardest time schools have ever faced, we built an infrastructure for immediate parent and community notifications and maintained to-the-minute crisis response. Against all odds, we increased trust for BCPS while national parent satisfaction with schools was at an all-time low.

Through six years of partnership, I became not only a BCPS Bearcat at heart, but also a trusted adviser and team member. I am proud to have helped the district shift community perceptions towards positivity, hope and change.