Parent/Student Newsletter

A parent/student newsletter is a highly popular public relations tactic in the communication plan of individual schools and school districts. Defined as a two-way asymmetric, segmented, public relations tactic, a parent/student newsletter is designed to not only communicate the key messages of a school or school district to its key publics, but to also give the key publics a glimpse of life inside the walls of the educational system.

To understand the dynamics of the parent/student newsletter, the first step would be to break down the definition and examine its three main components: two-way asymmetric communication, segmented audience, and tactic. However, to achieve a complete definition, one must simultaneously examine the parent newsletter and the student newsletter as two separate entities. Although one publication can, and often does, serve two different publics, often they are two publications serving two different publics.

The characteristic of being segmented means that, unlike the local newspaper, which is sent to a mass audience, the parent/student newsletter is delivered to a targeted list of people who have a vested interest in the organization. For example, some school districts send their parent newsletter to all taxpayers, believing that only the taxpayer has an interest in what is happening in the school, whereas others send their newsletter to every household in the school district, believing that everyone in the community has a vested interest in the state of education. When looking at student newsletters, the mailing list may be segmented to include current students or to include recent graduates.

Newsletters have been referred to as being “moderately interactive” because the audience, having a vested interest in the information, tends to be willing to supply feedback in the form of letters, phone calls, or e-mails. However, the parent newsletter is a good example of a two-way asymmetric tactic because there is a two-way communication between sender and receiver but the communication has an imbalanced effect, with the school district's or individual school's main purpose being to persuade its key publics of the value of the institution. The wellwritten, proactive parent newsletter will act as the school district's voice when the local media are running unfavorable stories or editorials regarding a particular issue. Although contacts are made with community papers, the real substance of a district's public relations efforts is verbalized in a quality parent newsletter.

However, this may not be true of a student newsletter. A true student newsletter, although most likely edited by an adult faculty member, is written by students for students, and in this format would be an example of the public information model of public relations. The purpose of the student newsletter is to disseminate information regarding the activities in school, whether academic or extracurricular. [Page 605]There is little research or persuasion that occurs, and the nature of the communication is one-way.

A tactic is a specific action that is taken to fulfill an objective. A parent/student newsletter is one of a number of tactics available to the public relations professional. In addition to a Web site, it is a standard tactic in a school district's or individual school's communication plan and can include articles on budgetary decisions, contract negotiations, extracurricular activities, curriculum changes/additions, and classroom/school highlights.

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