The Importance of Incorporating Student Voice

Matthew sat down with Samantha Fitzgerald from Park Hill School District in Missouri recently to discuss student voice—and how Samantha and her team incorporate it into their communications plan. You can watch the full video to learn more about topics such as the importance of student voice, incorporating print resources and social media, tracking analytics, and more! However, below we outline the questions and topics covered by Matthew and Samantha in the recent video. 

“Students are your biggest brand ambassadors.”

—Samantha Fitzgerald

Why is student voice important to you? 
Samantha Fitzgerald stated: “Student Voice is critical. Any time you post a video and it incorporates the student in some way—speaking about something they are interested in, a pathway program they are a part of—not only does it get more engagement, but they offer a unique and authentic perspective community members and families want to see and engage with.”

“If you really want change, you need to listen to the people who are sitting in those chairs day in and day out” 

—Samantha Fitzgerald

How do you incorporate student voices?
Part of Park Hill School District’s strategic plan is to involve students and their voices and their authentic learning styles. Samantha mentions the following ways to incorporate student voice:

• Content
• Social Media Posts
• Print Resources
• Student Advisory Council 

What are some ways you incorporate student voice effectively? 
Social media (an easy olive branch, as Samantha puts it) can be incorporated daily—whether your team has a videographer on staff like Park Hill or not—anyone on staff can go into classrooms and take photos of daily activities. Matthew mentioned how he was able to tackle it in the past as a part of a smaller communications team. Samantha notes their videographer or their team will go into a class and grab photos of what is going on day-to-day. Recently, the Park Hill Comms department started something new: while taking a photo of classroom happenings, they will then quickly interview the student(s)—asking “what are you learning about?” or “what are you engaging in?” From there, they pull a quote from that response and put it into the caption.

• So instead of just posting it to say “Matthew and Samantha did a biology experiment today and it was really cool”—it starts out with a direct quote from Matthew saying “we learned about gravity and how all of that is incorporated into our daily life.”

Samantha underscored how easy it can be to just capture the classroom events and write about it, but also just how much more impactful it is to get a quote from the student and share their perspective as your caption.  The Park Hill team noticed when students are the ones telling the stories or sharing about what is new, the content gets more engagement. 

• Consider this: If someone is on social media, they are typically scrolling through pretty quick, so you need something to catch their attention quickly. 
  • “A photo might do it, but also, if they’re going to read the caption let’s put something in there that’s  worthwhile.” —Samantha Fitzgerald 

Here are some additional notes about social media engagement: 

• Videos, particularly short form, often perform better than text and video on social media platforms. 
• Videos also help with widening reach. 
  • Reach is impacted by the content you post. If you post videos and have a large reach, that can mean other schools, community members, voters can be watching that — which can be impactful if you want to go out for a bond initiative, tax initiative, etc. Park hill has a spotlight series where they feature a chat with a principal and people from other schools are tuning in to watch them. 

• But getting your programs, values, and services out there to the broader community that may not even have kids in your district is critical. 
• Matthew noted: “If the video thing is scary, it does not have to be. Editing a 1-2 minute video is absolutely something you can map out—anybody can do it!”

Do I really have to comply? How do you handle video orientation (vertical versus horizontal)? Long versus short form content? Are you pulling short form content from long form? Are you intentionally making stories and reels?
Samantha mentioned that Park Hill is starting to do some shorter clips and treating them as teasers for the bigger spotlight videos that they can post on IG and X.

• Peachjar Extra Credit Tip: You can pull shorts out of a long-form video you already have or one you already plan to record and edit. An examples of that could be grabbing a quote from the student and putting it on social media—that could be a short you go back and pull from the longer video or inform you on a good snippet to capture or extract. 

Matthew and Samantha agreed that it is important to keep it simple! Matthew shared an anecdote about how he has had long-form videos in the past that he worked very hard on and spent a lot of time on, for the short he quickly extracted and edited from the same long form video to outperform it. 

To the point of intentionality, one thing Park Hill has started on social media, which earned them an honorable mention at NSPRA in 2023 was Student vlogs—or Day in the Life videos. The student is provided a phone from the technology department and records snippets of their day from their point of view. It allows the community a first-hand look at what their days look like. Answering questions such as, “What does it look like in your building?”, “What does class look like?”, “What does lunch look like?”, and “What does recess look like?” Or maybe an internship through a professional studies program—”what does that look like?”

The Park Hill team leaves the series pretty open-ended, allowing students to show up authentically. Once the student finishes recording their day, their videographer goes through all the clips, puts it together with some music. The caption is something along the lines of “What does a day in the life at Chinn Elementary (or insert school) look like? Take a look through the eyes of Myles.” While their graphic designer also makes a nice cool intro or cover— Samantha emphasized “It doesn’t have to be that way!” You do not want it to be too polished, or consumers could become disengaged. It is important to note that organic style videos typically perform better. 

Samantha also elaborated on the importance of other communications tools and incorporating student voice in other ways—such as in print! Park Hill has a quarterly magazine called “Connection Magazine” and it goes to all households in the district—even if the household does not have kids that go there. The Communications department puts it together and it encompasses all things Park Hill. It includes seasonal covers or covers that feature noteworthy updates. Their inside cover is always a personal note from the superintendent and focuses on what is going on in Park Hill. Overall, Connection Magazine includes what is going on in the district, if there are any strategic plan updates or “looking to the future” sections, articles from staff and students, hiring initiatives, retiree coffee, and more. 

“They’re giving us the feedback we need for the future of our district.”

—Samantha Fitzgerald

How do you track analytics?

Samantha noted her team uses Google analytics for social, annual surveys for their Connection Magazine, focus groups at community meetings, and when they send e-newsletters out to district and staff, they track the analytics directly from that interface. Additionally, her team takes time on the first Monday of every month to look at data from the month prior and track the appropriate information. Data informs decision making. 

Samantha shared some final insights, or food for thought: Just share stuff, it doesn't always have to be so planned or thought out. Just keep it simple.