DMPS Earns National Honors for Communications Efforts
Des Moines Public Schools earned recognition in several categories for its communications efforts at the 2012 National School Public Relations Association’s (NSPRA) annual national seminar being held this week in Chicago. The district earned a total of eight awards in NSPRA’s Publications and Electronic Media Awards competition.
DMPS received an Award of Excellence, the highest honor awarded in any category, for its efforts to enhance the use of social media over the past year. The school district’s online presence includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, which are integrated with the district’s new website. DMPS was one of only two school districts in the nation to receive an Award of Excellence for social media.
NSPRA also presented Des Moines Public Schools with an Award of Merit for the school district’s new website, blog, human resources brochure, and a DMPS-TV video featuring the Hillis Cookie Caucus, as well as in the excellence in writing category for a newspaper editorial. Additional awards included Honorable Mention for the DMPS Community Report newsletter and DMPS-TV News Brief.
“We are trying to do more and more to make news and information readily available to the public in a variety of formats, and it’s an honor that this work has been recognized nationally,” said Phil Roeder, director of community relations for Des Moines Public Schools. “While it’s great to be awarded for our work over the past year, I’m looking forward to our efforts in the coming months and years to do even more.”
The following is a list of the awards earned in various categories by DMPS (with links to those items available online):
AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
- Social Media: Integrated use of multiple social media sites including www.facebook.com/DMschools, www.twitter.com/DMschools, www.flickr.com/dmps, www.youtube.com/dmpstv, http://dmschools.tumblr.com/
AWARD OF MERIT
- Blog: The district’s “For the Record” blog at blog.dmschools.org
- Excellence in writing: “The Myth of the Failing High School in Iowa” (newspaper editorial published in the Des Moines Register)
- Marketing materials: “A Great Place to Live and Learn” (human resources recruiting brochure)
- Videocasting: DMPS-TV Hillis Cookie Caucus story
- Website: the new Des Moines Public Schools site at www.dmschools.org
HONORABLE MENTION
- Electronic Newsletter: DMPS Community Report, the district’s every-other-month newsletter
- Videocasting: DMPS-TV News Brief, the district’s monthly video news update
NSPRA is a professional organization dedicated to building support and trust for education through responsible public relations that leads to success for all students. For more information about the organization, including a complete list of award winners from across the country, visit www.nspra.org.
