September Engagement Ideas for the Start of the School Year!

Schools are back in session around the country! As students, parents, teachers, and school staff settle into new classrooms and new routines, it’s time to roll out your fresh communications plan for the new year. What are you most excited for? September is truly a month of new beginnings: a new school year, a new season—for weather and for school sports, a new start. All across your district, students and families are planning out fall and for the rest of the school year. This is a great time to reconnect with your community and set your intentions for the school year ahead.

With school back in session, how does your community celebrate back to school? Some schools host annual summer picnics at local parks. In the spirit of this, arranging for a school-wide fall event at a local orchard or corn maze, where parents, students, and school staff alike could get to know each other in a fun, social setting offers a great opportunity for building community. Other districts offer an event during the school day such as a fall carnival for students to have some extra fun at the beginning of the year to reduce some of the stress from starting school and adjusting to new schedules. Let us know if your school does this or something similar and how it goes! 

Fall Events

No matter when Pumpkin Spice items drop, fall officially starts on September 23rd! What’s on your district’s fall bucket list? Are there partners in your community that host fall events? From hayrides to apple picking, September and fall are great times to get outside—even if the days are a little shorter! Start compiling a list of fall family activities to share with your district families. Whether or not those events are hosted by your school or somewhere local, families love to find new things that they can do together. Because your district is a trusted resource for information, passing along information for fun things to do in your area is beneficial to families looking to mix up their weekends, hang out with friends, or meet new people.

Civic Day of Hacking

Does your school, or one of your community partners, offer coding classes? If so, you probably already know that the Civic Day of Hacking is on September 18th—but in case you didn’t, now you know! The day celebrates coders who come together to face challenges using code, data, and technology. It’s not restricted to one day, either, hackathons for students happen all year round! If your local community is interested in learning about coding or participating in a hackathon, this is a great opportunity to host and be a central spot for your community as well. Major League Hacking offers this guide to hackathons for school administrators. 

September Dates

September brings some really fun days for engagement, too, like National Day of Encouragement on September 12th. Who doesn’t need a little emotional boost every now and again? Consider having students write encouraging messages for other students. These could be direct or placed randomly throughout the schools for all to read when they need a pick me up. Words of affirmation are also popular and also present a great chance for teachers to lead student groups in a moment of affirmation and kindness towards themselves. 

Ahoy! September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day. What a fun way to mix up the use of language by talking like pirates! This is a fun exercise to keep students engaged for the day. Teachers might also be able to elaborate on the history of pirates as well to make the day filled with fun and learning. 

Thank You

No matter how you celebrate the fall at your school district, from showing off your school spirit to celebrating individualism in your students, we at Peachjar are wishing you the best of luck as you start the school year and hope it’s one filled with fun for everyone! As always, we’re here to support however we can. Check out our free flyer downloads below to help get you started.

We've created some engagement templates to get you started! Fill out the form below to download them. 

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