Start of the School Year Update: Office of Communications

Bill Good

August 14, 2025

Dear DPS Community,

The Communications Department supported several large-scale and school-specific initiatives during the 2024-25 school year. We saw tremendous growth and engagement with all of our audiences and would like to thank all of you for allowing us to tell stories that showcase the incredible things happening in DPS.

Implementation of Districtwide Digital Accessibility Standards

In compliance with Colorado House Bill 21-1110, we executed a robust communications plan to bring awareness and share resources around digital accessibility. The Marketing Team redesigned hundreds of district, department and school brand standards, templates and files for accessibility and established Intelligence Bank, the new accessible brand portal. We also migrated The Commons Intranet and roughly 25% of school websites to Thrillshare by Apptegy, our accessible content management system. The remaining school websites will be migrated to Thrillshare in 2025-26.

Award-Winning Campaigns and Projects

The following campaigns won awards from Colorado Association of Public Relations Association (COSPRA) and the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA). In addition to winning awards, members of our team were invited to present at the COSPRA, NSPRA and the Council of Great City Schools conferences. These presentations focused on our award-winning campaigns to further establish DPS Communications as a leader in innovative, impactful storytelling in public education. 

See the full list of additional award recognitions the department received.

Served Schools and Departments With Marketing Support

The Marketing Team served a total of 61 schools and 57 departments with marketing or communications efforts last year. Some highlights include:

  • Implemented a multifaceted marketing campaign for Early Childhood Education (ECE), which led to an additional 336 families enrolling in our ECE programs.

  • Held the “DoNot Miss Class” campaign, which increased student attendance 2.75% on our designated count days.

  • Designed and edited 12 major district reports, and provided design support for 744 school and department projects. 

  • Established text-based pulse check surveys of 5,425 families at eight schools on topics such as the general sentiment of their opinions of their school, attendance, school culture, involvement and engagement. Families responded in eight languages, with 33% responding in a language other than English.

  • Engaged students in a marketing research project to understand student sentiment around vaping, to inform a three-year anti-vaping campaign at DPS. We completed eight focus groups of middle and high school students and one focus group for families, and surveyed 567 students and family members on this topic.

  • Our five School Communications Specialists completed 7,008 communications tasks for 13 schools and two departments from July 2024 - June 2025, which came out to an average of 117 communications tasks per month, per person. We are expanding to add a sixth School Communications Specialist to the program for 2025-26 to support 15 schools and three departments.

Reaffirmed Newsletters as Go-to Sources of Information

The Internal Communications Team produces five newsletters to reach families, staff and community members. At the start of 2024-25, the team switched to Thrillshare Engage to ensure each newsletter is digitally accessible. All five newsletters' open rates consistently exceeded the industry standard of 35.64% – Leader Weekly 72%, Teacher Weekly 70%, Team DPS Weekly 63%, Manager Monthly 76%, Our DPS Weekly 60%. These metrics signify that our newsletters continue to be reliable vehicles of information for our audiences.

Multimedia Storytelling and Production Highlights

The Multimedia Team experienced a record-setting year for DPS-produced podcasts in 2024-25 with 89,900 total downloads. In total, we managed over 200 productions that were shared across YouTube, social media, Comcast Channel 8, the DPS website and on all major podcast platforms. By sharing the stories of our students, staff and community members, we were able to amplify impactful stories and create a greater sense of community.

Social Media Growth and Engagement

Our authentic, strategic social media practices resulted in record-high engagement across all platforms in 2024-25. DPS had a 5,000 follower increase on Instagram, along with significant growth in total audience numbers. One of our most notable wins, Zoey’s Story, went viral with 4.2 million views!

Met Increasing Demands for Interpretation and Translation Services

In 2024-25, the Interpretations Team processed 10,995 interpretation requests, totaling 19,232 hours of services provided by qualified interpreters and a 33% increase from the year prior. The Translations Team fulfilled 6,477 requests (1,567 of which were IEPs) for a total of nearly 16 million words and a 10% increase from the year prior. Both teams processed a record number of requests that exemplified their commitment to meeting the DPS community’s increasing need for exceptional language services.

External/Media Highlights

From August 2024 through June 2025, the media relations team managed more than 650 media requests ranging from information about school lockdowns, school secure perimeters, Board of Education policies and federal funding cuts. The team also emphasized media outreach to ensure that student-focused stories, which are often overlooked, were covered in the press. Student achievements, student-led initiatives and programs, and innovative  teacher-led programs are at the center of all we do and deserve to be highlighted. These efforts led to a significant improvement in DPS media mentions, with positive and neutral media mentions rising to 89.6%, and negative sentiment dropping to just 10.4%—the lowest in years.

The Communications Department will continue working diligently to ensure the DPS community is equipped with the information needed to learn, work and thrive in our safe and welcoming district.

Sincerely,

Bill Good
DPS Chief of Communications