Apptegy

10/15/2026

80% of families engaged. Zero communications staff. And a district that’s changing the way it connects with its community.

What if your district didn’t need a communications department to communicate like one?

Meet the Hood Canal School District, a rural Washington district serving approximately 330 students.

Superintendent Dr. Lance Gibbon has spent years juggling communications alongside everything else that comes with leading a school district.

In 2025, the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) gave them four national awards.

No dedicated communications team. No extra hours in the day.

Just a commitment to making sure families feel informed, included, and connected.

Here’s what changed when Hood Canal brought its communications together with Apptegy:

📱 80% family adoption. One district-branded platform gives families a central place to connect, instead of juggling multiple apps.

🌎 Language is no longer a barrier. Two-way message translation helps Spanish-speaking families communicate with school staff in the language they prefer.

⏱️ Less friction. More responses. Short text messages and mobile-friendly forms make it easier for families to respond without navigating a stack of paperwork going home in a backpack.

📋 One place to find the record. When the district needed communications records for a compliance review, key information was right there in the platform.

And perhaps the biggest lesson? Better communication doesn’t have to mean more work for an already stretched team.

Because every district deserves to be heard, regardless of its size or staffing.

👉 Read the Hood Canal story: https://www.apptegy.com/guides/80-of-families-no-communications-staff/

How a 330-student rural district on the Skokomish Reservation built a family communication system that families actually use.

10/09/2026

Here is what our Strategic Communications Advisor Greg Turchetta would fix first as your district's Communications Chief👇

09/29/2026

Congratulations to our 2026 SchoolCEO Excellence in Marketing Award winner Jacque Ballent of Texas!

09/24/2026

Who owns communication at your school? A principal, teacher, office manager, or everyone at once?

This case study explores how Public Schools and Jefferson County Schools in West Virginia built school-based communication models that fit their budgets, reduced the load on staff, and helped families get the information they need.

Read the full story: https://www.apptegy.com/guides/the-communicator-every-school-needs-two-models-at-two-budgets/

The structures are different. The lesson is remarkably similar: a communications program works better when someone owns the work, has clear expectations, and is connected to the people making decisions.

09/23/2026

The deadline was 60 days.

The real problem had been growing for years.

When a new Oklahoma law changed how school personnel could communicate with students, Mid-Del Public Schools had to move fast.

But the mandate exposed something bigger:

Too many tools.
Too many habits.
Too many places for families to look.

Mid-Del could have patched together a compliance fix.

Instead, district leaders used the pressure to rethink how communication should work across the entire district.

What happened next offers a timely lesson for every school system navigating new regulations, enrollment pressure, and the fight for family trust.

Sometimes the mandate isn’t the story.

The momentum it creates is.

See how Mid-Del turned an urgent deadline into a clearer communication system: https://www.apptegy.com/guides/from-mandate-to-momentum-how-mid-del-build-a-clearer-communication-system/

09/21/2026

Give a new visitor sixty seconds. In that time they should walk away knowing what makes your district different, what the student experience actually feels like, how to enroll, how to explore your schools, and how to find out what it's like to work there. If they can't get all of that in a minute, your homepage is failing. Apptegy's Strategic Communations Advisor Greg Turchetta says your homepage has to win the enrollment argument.

Lead with your value. Tell better stories. Make the next step obvious. And build the site so both a family and a future employee feel like they've found somewhere worth choosing, whether a human is reading it or an AI tool is reading it for them.

Here are 10 sites worth emulating for enrollment success!

Disclaimer from Greg: These are 10 enrollment sites in a list. These are not rankings for the top enrollment marketing districts. That list would start with Denver Public Schools, Sarasota County Schools and Duval County Public Schools.

09/08/2026

There are 3 reasons AI tools cannot find your best content. Strategic Communications Advisor Greg Turchetta explains how to make sure tech savvy families see your best selling points.

09/04/2026

Your district’s next enrollment breakthrough isn’t a bigger advertising budget, it's a better digital front door!
Raleigh County Schools in West Virginia had lost roughly 500 students over two years.

They also had:
No communications director
A teacher serving as webmaster (who doesn't work summers)
No online enrollment process
A website that wasn’t clearly answering the question every prospective family asks:

Why should we choose your district?

So we built a 60-day plan around one goal: make Raleigh’s strengths impossible to miss and make enrollment easy.

The district launched:
An enrollment-focused homepage
A prominent “Enroll Now” button
Landing pages built around what families actually care about
Student video testimonials
Online enrollment for the first time
Search and a chatbot to help families find answers quickly

The result?

535 online enrollment applications in four weeks.
328 students were new to the district.

At an estimated $5,500 per student, that represents approximately $1.8 million in potential new revenue.

Enrollment growth starts when a district can clearly communicate its value, prove the experience through student voices, and remove every unnecessary step between interest and action.

Read the full case study here: 👉 https://www.apptegy.com/guides/raleigh-county-schools-a-step-ahead/

Hear the story in their own words: https://youtu.be/j946NtVmP6I

How an enrollment-focused website turned four weeks of digital interest into 328 new student applications.

08/31/2026

5 Signs Your Homepage Is Built for Families Who Already Enrolled

Strategic Communications Advisor Greg Turchetta looks for the same "tells" in every homepage audit he provides to our clients. 👇

Is your homepage winning the enrollment argument or is it designed to serve your families who have already enrolled?

In a school choice environment, you have do both.

08/10/2026

It’s the start of the 2026-2027 school year! Our team is excited to support you on the first day of school and beyond!