I joined Springfield Public Schools (SPS) in March 2023 and unlike my experience at the University of Oregon, where I was often working in isolation as a media and design professional, I became part of a team of people who have ample media experience and translation skills.
While SPS had a history of communications teams, our ensemble is without a doubt the most robust integrative communications team this district has ever enjoyed—our team provides support for public relations, translation services, media engagement, web development, and content creation.
The first year of work at SPS has been focused heavily on web development and branding. Our team redesigned the entire school district experience and I personally rebranded the key landing pages for our district, including District Homepage, Human Resources, School Board, Superintendent, Academics, Get Involved and Newsroom. This project took five intense months of production from brainstorming and staging to content creation, migration and delivery; we published 2,605 pages, transferred 914 files, and redesigned 22 websites (20 schools, one district site and an intranet) with a greater focus on accessibility, user experience and quality design.
The new set of websites was one of the most important community and communications project in the history of Springfield Public Schools, benefitting more than 10,000 students and their families, approximately 1,600 employees, 11 administrative departments, and the public at large.
The building of photographic assets for Springfield Public Schools included a Photo Tour of 20 schools (12 elementaries, 4 middle schools, and 4 high schools) across 185 square miles. Throughout the process, my aim was to raise the overall quality of all school assets and to showcase the diversity of smiles across our district—an element sorely missing from historical archives.
In addition, our coverage of key events throughout our shared first year of activity, provided plenty of visual arsenal for curating key school-specific images and celebrating 2023 graduates and their families.
From an aesthetic perspective, the focus has always been to dignify the teaching and learning experience at all levels, never to look down on our children or their perspective, and to celebrate all the different people that contribute to the district’s mission every day—from our bus drivers and chefs to our educational assistants and facilities crews.
Our new SPS websites and digital collaterals feature compelling and engaging portraits of teachers in action, students young focused in class, actual district families, and employees of all ages and backgrounds. Our district serves everyone.
Immersive storytelling with a focus on video production has also been an important focus in rebranding and telling the stories of SPS. A key example was the months-long production of a series of programmatic landing pages, interviews and videos to support the more than 20 Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs in the district’s four high schools. Our immersive project Pathways to Professions features some of our district’s most entrepreneurial students across different programs, from culinary arts and filmmaking to automotive tech and forestry.
A collection of videos, key images, social media cards and our immersive story were released in February 2024 as part of the national celebration of CTE Month.
First year of activity at SPS also included a significant amount of crisis communications efforts, I closed my first year literally creating and translating emergency messages through multiple channels following the mid-January ice storm of 2024 that impacted Springfield and much of Oregon. The storm destroyed more than 20,000 trees, brought down many electrical lines, and left the majority of our schools without power and drinking water. For one week our team engaged in different types of communications efforts as city and district crews tried to fix as many problems as possible to support a return to normalcy.
As year two is about to officially begin at SPS, the focus is already completely shifting from heavy web development and photographic asset building to strengthening and coordinating branding standards, storytelling, and strategic communications projects.
One of the most important contributions to the district has been the development of a dedicated SPS Brand Guide, which lives inside the district’s intranet. In addition, I developed a small visual booklet as a companion to the brand guide for easy access and to print a few reference copies for administrators and teachers.
Another key project was the development of a printed district brochure, intended to inform and provide a robust overview of information about Springfield Public Schools, the community, demographics, and sense of place.
As the new presence for SPS develops and grows, I think it will be easy to see a lot of the design and storytelling work influencing the way other school districts think about and imagine their communications efforts.
The work done so far, aims to dignify and speak to our mission of serving every student, every day.
Chakris Kussalanant 