PR director cites big jump in social reach, lays out website and ADA compliance priorities

Sarah Hegar, the district public relations supervisor, reported to the board on June 11 that the communications team has modernized the district brand, launched a centralized branding toolkit, refreshed the website and significantly increased social media reach and followers over the past year.

Why it matters: Clear communications and an accessible web presence shape public understanding of budgets, safety and program changes. Hegar said the district’s next priorities are removing PDF‑only pages in favor of accessible web pages that support translation and meet DOJ accessibility expectations by April 2027, building an opt‑in community mailing list for non‑enrolled residents and managing message fatigue through analytics.

Details presented
- Metrics: Hegar said social media views rose from about 1.4 million to roughly 5.3 million when comparing the first half of last year to the same period this year, and the district added approximately 2,100 followers. Weekly staff and community newsletters were expanded and professional multimedia were used to elevate storytelling.
- Website and accessibility: The PR team plans a phased audit to replace standalone PDFs with searchable, ADA‑friendly web pages and to consolidate “ghost” or outdated pages that still appear in navigation or search results. The Department of Justice‑driven ADA compliance timeline was cited as a hard deadline (April 2027).
- Community outreach: Hegar proposed an opt‑in outreach list for local non‑enrolled residents (seniors, civic groups) using ParentSquare or similar systems and urged more proactive corrections of misinformation by privately contacting sources when possible and by timely official releases where needed.

Next steps: The PR office will continue a web audit, implement the brand toolkit district‑wide and monitor ParentSquare metrics to prevent message fatigue. Board members suggested partnerships with municipalities for outreach to seniors and recommended clearer calendar and athletics‑listing integrations via facility and sports software integrations.