Regional Office of Education (ROE) #21
In my current role as the Marketing & Design Coordinator at the Regional Office of Education #21, I have led the creative direction of various digital and print content to support communication and marketing efforts. Check out the different projects I have accomplished during my time at ROE #21.
Summer Institute
Category: Visual Identity, Social Media
Role: Art Direction
The ROE #21 Summer Institute is a two-day conference held every (you guessed it) summer for school administrators filled with keynote speakers and breakout sessions covering everything from truancy,
social-emotional learning, self care, education law updates, and more. This is one of the ROE's largest events they hold, and educators from across the state come to take part in this gathering of education professionals.
I was in charge of the visual identity of this event, as well as creating all collateral and creating a social media plan to advertise the event. The direction was for a professional, dynamic look that highlighted our keynote speakers yet was still stylish and fun.
Social Media
To get the word out about the Institute and to communicate more information about the keynote speakers,
I created posts highlighting the conference, giving a peek into the schedule as well as background into the speakers to build excitement around the big day.
Collateral
The Summer Institute required a variety of day-of collateral to maintain organization for event-goers. This included event brochures, gift drawing vouchers, maps, and more.
SEL Cohort Videos
Category: Social Video Content
Role: Video Editing & Copywriting
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is an educational method that aims to foster social and emotional skills within school curricula. Each ROE in the state houses an SEL Culture & Climate Coach, and as a statewide team, the ROE SEL Coaches participate in Illinois State Board of Education-sponsored training, professional development, and collaborate with the statewide Resilience Education to Advance Community Healing (REACH) initiative to train educators, school mental health professionals, and community members to recognize the signs and symptoms
of trauma and to address students’ social-emotional and mental health needs.
The SEL Director at ROE #21 and myself came together to create a video campaign to advertise the upcoming Cohort registration. The SEL Cohort system offers training in social emotional learning, trauma responsive practices, and support for all school members involved. I received footage from a recent Cohort outing, where SEL Cohort Leaders came together for a day of self-care and to connect with one-another. I created these videos and collaborated with our ROE #21 SEL Director to write copy expressing how important these Cohorts are, not only to the schools but the children and families involved. These recruitment videos were posted to five ROEs' social media and sent to educators across the state to engage educators curious about joining the upcoming SEL Cohort.
#roe21changemaker Campaign
Category: Social Media Campaign
Role: Concept Creation, Art Direction
ROE #21 could be considered a "powerhouse" in the southern region. It houses an impressive roster of education professionals ready and motivated to support every teacher, administrator, paraprofessional, etc in the four counties that it serves. This level of support strengthens schools and gives the children of the districts an important leg-up in academics. However, I realized that while we do a lot to recognize our amazing educators, we could be doing more to uplift the students of the region as well. Through this realization, I came up with the #roe21changemaker social media campaign. While ultimately this was left on the cutting room floor, I find myself compelled to share the mechanics of this campaign that I had so much fun creating.
Goals
I wanted to harness the reach of our social media to highlight the high school students of our region who go above and beyond everyday not only to change the climate inside their schools but also in their communities.
It is important to emphasize that this is not an academic award--this is a recognition of good character. The four goals of this campaign were to:
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Amplify high school students who lean into and help build their school community
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Encourage students to build community through service to others
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Inspire positive change through student activities
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Reward good character and set an example for students to follow
How It Works: Tier 1
Awardees in Tier 1 are selected by their school principal each semester through a nomination system--any school worker can nominate a student. Students that are nominated should exemplify friendliness, helpfulness,
a positive attitude, accountability, maturity, responsibility, and a willingness to help others. The principal will select 1-3 students to be gifted an #roe21changemaker goodie bag, certificate, and social media recognition on the official ROE #21 Facebook and Instagram. This would engage our reach and spread not only the good deeds of our students, but our brand outside of our typical education sphere and into other communities.
How It Works: Tier 2
To make the #roe21changemaker recognition even more prestigious, a second "tier" was added. In Tier 2,
1-3 high school seniors from each high school would be nominated by their principal for the ROE #21 Changemaker of the Year award, chosen by the Regional Superintendent. This award would be presented by
the Regional Superintendent at graduation, along with a $10,000 scholarship to their chosen school. The winner would receive a dedicated social media post as well as an article in the Southern Illinoisan, the major regional news publication.
Social Media
Category: Social Media
Role: Social Media Management, Art Direction
Besides email, ROE #21's biggest form of communication to the region is through social media. With a reach of over 20,000 on Facebook and a budding community on the newly-formed Instagram page, there is a lot to push out about the various workshops, trainings, professional development, and other sessions that the ROE offers to educators in the region.
Management
At the beginning of my tenure at ROE #21, I realized that to maintain such a buzzing online presence, organization would be a major part of keeping myself and my team on top of the task of communicating such important information everyday to our followers. To do that, I established a monthly social media meeting with the Regional Superintendent, Assistant Regional Superintendent, Professional Development Director, Professional Development Coordinator, and Regional Communications Manager. I developed a monthly calendar through Notion that I fill with postings such as our events, relevant educational updates, holidays, office closings, and other posts that are necessary for the ROE to communicate. Every post is then scheduled on Buffer to streamline the process.
Posts
Besides the unique contributions each month, there are recurring segments that I created to maintain
a consistent message and more uniformity on our outlets. These include #MondayMotivation posts, monthly #MeetTheTeamMondays to engage our audience with the faces behind the scenes, a first-of-the-month Upcoming Events story post to introduce our various happenings, and a "Coming Up Next Week" IG and FB story every Friday to remind our followers of the events coming up the following week. Besides our regularly scheduled programming, the types of posts that are produced are unique in style and tone to reflect the various trainings, workshops, cohorts, and sessions that the ROE offers.
Logos
Category: Branding
Role: Art Direction
PACT Team
The Partners Against Chronic Truancy (PACT) Program (affectionately known as the PACT Team) provides
a comprehensive truancy prevention and intervention program for students in all grade levels throughout ROE #21. The focus of PACT is to aid students and their families in re-establishing regular attendance, normal school habits, and academic success. Students with attendance problems are eligible for participation in the Partners Against Chronic Truancy Program. The PACT team needed a professional and modern logo that established their role and create cohesion and brand recognition for their cause.
After we whittled it down to the final three options, we decided that the far left option was slightly too "young" and the middle option needed more connection to school than just the school bell. The PACT Team liked
the school connection and the strong containment of the far right option, and we made the change to use
the ROE #21 brand colors.
McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program
The federal McKinney-Vento Act is designed to address the problems that homeless children and youth have faced in enrolling, attending, and succeeding in school. Under this program, local educational agencies must ensure that each McKinney-Vento-eligible child and youth has equal access to the same free, appropriate public education, including a public preschool education, as other children and youth. I partnered with ROE #21's McKinney-Vento (MKV) team to create a logo to bring a cohesive, professional look to the southern region's program and to maintain consistency throughout all MKV materials.
The team liked how the bottom right logo used the "V" initial to subtly call back to the idea of housing and how it felt the most contained and "supported," but wanted the addition of the "K" into the initials and to add
a graduation cap. Similar to the PACT Team logo, we decided to change it to the ROE #21 brand colors as well.
Flyers
Category: Print/Digital Advertising
Role: Art Direction
On any given week, ROE #21 has an ever-expanding list of events happening across a wide variety of subjects for educators, administrators, aspiring substitute teachers, and much much more. All of these events, workshops, sessions, cohorts, and conference of course need a one-pager of information to send to the masses. While social media is a huge part of this, there's an even larger network that we communicate to regularly--that's where the flyer comes in. These flyers are either emailed or printed and handed out manually (is it weird to say "the old fashioned way?").
