Apptegy

Today is the day! We are diving deep into K-12 crisis communications planning.

Having the right tools is critical.

Having a crisis tested plan is essential!

It’s a free webinar today at 2pm.

We are even going to give you our 39 page crisis communications planning planning plan template you can customize and start using tomorrow.

Sign up for this free webinar here:
https://apptegy.zoom.us/webinar/register/7317857655452/WN_zROrzGUfS1CV278qYT2dJw

Is your district crisis communications plan really ready?

Wednesday at 2pm eastern, Strategic Communications Advisor Greg Turchetta and Anne Arundel County Schools Chief Communications Officer Bob Mosier will pressure test your crisis communications plans!

If you lead school or district crisis communications, this training is for you.

👉Sign up for the webinar here: https://lnkd.in/eBb5u3mQ

👉All attendees will get our brand new 39 page crisis communications template!

🚨Breaking news! Our summer edition of SchoolCEO magazine should be hitting your mailbox this week.

It’s called “Service with a Smile.”

Why?

📞Because the quality of K-12 customer service is quickly becoming an enrollment issue.

💡Here’s SchoolCEO columnist Greg Turchetta & editor Melissa Hite with an insider preview!

👉Pro tip: if you cannot wait for the physical copy, click here to read the digital edition: https://www.apptegy.com/schoolceo/issue/school-hospitality-customer-service/

It’s the number one question our Strategic Communications Advisor Greg Turchetta gets asked across the country. “Where is or how is Yury Touchstone??” Ladies and gentlemen, today he has your answer!

Oh, and if you want to see Yury sign up for the SchoolCEO conference here: https://lnkd.in/eFrZPaz3

Attendance does not break down because people do not care.

It breaks down because the system makes response, context, and intervention harder than they should.

And when intervention only kicks in after a student is already chronically absent, the district is not preventing the problem.

It is documenting it.

That is the real issue.

Greg Turchetta, Apptegy's Strategic Communications Advisor, explains it this way:

Districts do not just need better attendance tracking.

They need a faster path to understanding.

Because every missed day is not just a data point.

It is a signal.

A signal that a family may need support. A signal that a pattern may be forming. A signal that the district still has a chance to step in earlier.

That is why the strongest attendance workflows are built on two-way communication.

Because two-way communication turns attendance from a reporting task into an early intervention system.

It gives families a simple way to respond, gives staff faster insight into the why behind the absence, and gives districts a chance to step in earlier while support can still change the outcome.

Apptegy's Attendance Pro supports that shift with AI-powered, two-way SMS, guided follow-up, and earlier visibility into attendance patterns.

That is what better attendance strategy looks like: moving from absence to answer.

If your district is ready to stop reacting late and start uncovering the why sooner, click here: https://www.apptegy.com/attendance-pro/?ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apptegy.com%2F

In a real crisis, school district leaders don't rise to the occasion.

They fall to the systems they already have in place.

If that communications system is fragmented, slow, or inconsistent, that's the moment families find out.

Here's what most districts get wrong:
❌They treat this as a template problem.
❌Or a training problem.
❌It's neither.

✅It's a systems readiness problem.

📹 Greg Turchetta, Apptegy's Strategic Communications Advisor, breaks down why crisis communication starts long before the crisis.🚨

If you want more confidence in your urgent communication capability, see how the Apptegy Platform helps districts prepare before the moment arrives​: 👇🏻www.apptegy.com/platform/

Your front office is not a search bar.
And if staff are answering the same question over and over, that is not a people problem.
It is a systems problem.

Greg Turchetta, Apptegy’s Strategic Communications Advisor, say too many districts think the fix is publishing more.
It is not.
The real issue is that families cannot find what you have already published quickly enough to trust it.

So the same cycle keeps happening:
❓A parent has a question.
🤷🏽‍♀️They cannot find the answer.
📞They call the office.
🤳A staff member stops what they are doing.
📞Answers it again.
❌And leadership never gets a clear picture of where the confusion actually is.

That is not just inefficient.
It is expensive in staff time, frustrating for families, and quietly damaging to trust.

The districts getting ahead are not hiring more people to answer repeat questions.

They are building a better front door.
✅Fewer clicks.
✅Less confusion.
✅Faster answers.
✅Better visibility into what families are actually asking.

That is the shift.
Stop making staff the search engine.
Start building an experience that answers better the first time.

If your front office is still functioning like the district help desk, take a look at how Community Experience is helping districts reduce noise and give families faster, clearer answers. 👉 https://bit.ly/4fY1BUD

Internal communication breaks culture before it breaks your operations.

Many culture problems in schools start with one moment:

A staff member hears about a change in the parking lot, not from leadership.

That’s when “I didn’t know” becomes “nobody ever tells us anything!.”

Once that belief takes hold, it’s expensive to reverse.

Not because leaders stopped caring, but because internal communication systems in schools were never designed to make staff feel informed first.

In the video below, Greg Turchetta, Apptegy’s Strategic Communications Advisor, says he sees it all too often and doesn’t believe it’s a leadership failure.

His experience says it’s usually a communication design failure.

A real internal school communication system gives staff:
✅One clear place to find updates
✅A way for leaders to see what’s being received
✅A path from announcement acknowledgment
✅Support for two-way communication (before rumors fill the gap)

When that’s in place, staff stop feeling like they’re the last to know, because they’re not.
If staff are hearing important updates secondhand, see how Staff Connect helps you build the internal communication system you actually need👉 https://bit.ly/4dX3BK5