Mount Lebanon communications director outlines website, newsletter and social media goals

Brandy Smith, the district's director of communications, presented a midyear update to the Mount Lebanon School District Board of School Directors on Feb. 10 outlining the communications department's roles, metrics and near-term plans.

Smith said the department's work includes internal and external communications, website management, social media engagement and monitoring, issue management, media relations, speech and presentation development, and help with event planning. "At a high level, those are the roles and responsibilities of the communications department," she said.

The presentation included baseline metrics Smith said the department will use to measure future progress. For the period from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024, Smith reported about 250,000 unique users to the district website and identified the district calendar and homepage among the most-visited pages. She attributed a single high-traffic day, Jan. 16, 2024, to a winter-weather remote learning day that led many users to seek synchronous learning links and updates.

Smith also reviewed email and newsletter performance. She said the district's initial back-to-school staff and parent emails each produced an average 88% open rate and that the district newsletter averages about an 84% open rate. "I will say I am taking this year, this school year to really look at baseline numbers for a lot of our things," Smith said, noting the intention to track newsletter open rates and social-media engagement over time.

Among near-term projects, Smith described development of a district branding and social media style guide, a communications matrix that will clarify which tools (website, newsletter, Schoology, social media) should host particular information, and a two-year site refresh in partnership with vendor FinalSight. She said the district aims for a one-to-two click experience to find key information and targets a website template migration in summer 2026.

Smith said the communications team has increased posting frequency to about five posts per week, up from the prior school year, and that content categories have been tracked: roughly 36% district activities, 21% academics, about 15% administration/holidays and about 7% arts and awards. She also said the department has been using a shared folder for consistent logos and color palettes to encourage uniform branding among schools and parent groups.

Smith described outreach efforts to internal audiences, saying she had visited 30 schools 36 times and participated in PTA Council and elementary presidents meetings to build relationships and receive story leads. She said the department has handled 76 formal requests to date this school year: about 53% for website updates, 30% social media requests, 14% media requests and roughly 3% newsletter items.

Looking ahead, Smith said communications goals for the year include aligning the communication strategy with the district strategic plan, developing proactive public-relations work to raise Mount Lebanon's profile locally and beyond, improving district and school websites, and streamlining communications among website, newsletters and Schoology. The presentation materials are linked on the board's public agenda in BoardDocs, the board was told.