21247 LM Jan2022

Video ... cont’d.

Paris-UnionSD#95 Dr. Jeremy Larson said he wanted to have a video produced to tell the story of the amazing work happening across the district as well as market the strengths of the community. Located near the Indiana border about 40 miles south of Danville, Paris- Union SD #95 educates about 875 students. “I think school districts have to start marketing themselves to let your community know what is going on,” Dr. Larson said. “If you’re not telling your story, someone will tell it for you.” Paris-Union SD #95’s video features interviews with teachers and principals, set to B roll and music. Dr. Larson only appears briefly. That approach was by design. “The superintendent might be behind the scenes doing the PR work, but I don’t think they should always be the PR person,” Dr. Larson said. “A lot of people have distrust with authority and don’t want to hear from the person who makes the decisions.” Before any footage was shot, Dr. Larson thought deeply about what the district’s brand is, what message the video should convey and who the audience is. He asked teachers to drive the process and act as the spokespersons for the district. “We want to put out that we are a caring community, we are focused on community and supporting one another and that we will strive to do better everyday,” Dr. Larson said. “There is so much negativity out there that we want to make sure we showcase that we are a happy community.” Paris-Union SD #95 was fortunate it didn’t have to spend much money on the video because the videographer lived in the community and attended the same church as Dr. Larson. Because of the positive feedback, Dr. Larson hopes to produce more videos in the future. “Our goal is to bring people from outside the community into our community,” he said.

Pikeland CUSD#10 For Pikeland CUSD #10, the 2021-22 school year is the year of the REBOUND. With the help of a professional videographer, the district created four videos to highlight the theme and share a message of resiliency and bouncing back. The theme of REBOUND stands for Regulate, Educate, Balance, Optimism, Unique, Nurture and Determined. “We know our adults and students have been under an extreme amount of stress throughout the pandemic,” said Dr. Carol Kilver, Pikeland CUSD #10 superintendent. “One of our goals was to create a historical marker so when we step back and have time to reflect, we can remember what we went through together and how people were feeling at the time.” The four videos are currently housed on the district’s website and the links for the videos are sent directly to parents using the school messaging system. Dr. Kilver said she decided not to post the videos on social media because it tends to attract negative comments. “It’s pretty intense here, so we’ve found that social media opens the door for negativity,” she said. Pikeland CUSD #10 hopes to continue to make smaller vignette videos in the future that will align with the district’s new Social Emotional Learning programming and possibly highlight other district programs.

If you’re not telling your story, someone will tell it for you.

6 LM January 2022