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Vancouver School District staff report sharp gains in digital outreach, outline website and translation work
Summary
Communications staff told the board the district's strategic‑plan communications efforts produced specific engagement gains — including 2,300 superintendent‑finalist video views, a new budget page with roughly 2,600 visits and ParentSquare contactability at about 99% — and outlined a website redesign and translation gaps to address.
Jessica Roberts, the district’s executive director of communications, told the Vancouver School District board that the communications team has tracked measurable engagement tied to the strategic plan and is pushing to make district information easier for families to use.
Roberts said the district’s superintendent‑finalist videos drew about 2,300 views and that a district budget page launched in mid‑January has seen roughly 2,600 visits. “ParentSquare benchmark for families being contactable…they think you’re a success if you have 93.8% of your families who are contactable. In our school district, 99% of our families are contactable,” Roberts said, citing the platform’s metrics and the communications team’s follow‑up work to reach families.
The update included examples of how the communications team amplifies classroom stories, crowdsources content and supports large events; Roberts said social posts and other efforts have increased followers, interactions and overall reach. She also outlined a website redesign aimed at a user‑first architecture, simplifying page layouts, consolidating content and adding a homepage carousel to surface programs and services.
Nut graf: The communications presentation tied specific digital and outreach metrics to the district’s three strategic goals — student‑centered staff experience, student‑centered experience and student‑centered community — and set priorities for making information accessible to multilingual and hard‑to‑reach families.
Board members asked how the district plans to reach families who don’t use online tools. Janelle Ephraim, interim associate superintendent, said staff are experimenting with a mix of translated print materials, targeted flyers for schools and partnership outreach through advisory leaders. “One of [the challenges] is ParentSquare does not automatically translate into Chuukese,” Ephraim said, noting the district still needs better auto‑translation for some community languages.
The communications team also said it has expanded anonymous incident reporting (formerly HIB forms) and is improving internal forms so requests for website or communications support follow through to multiple channels. Roberts highlighted ParentSquare and teacher direct messaging as a priority for family engagement, saying the district has succeeded in raising teacher direct‑message rates well above typical benchmarks.
What’s next: staff will continue the website migration and content cleanup, broaden translation and printing strategies to reach non‑digital families, and supply board members with packaged resources that could be distributed more widely if the board wants to do so.
