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Communications Instructions for Chairs

Posting School-wide Updates on Konstella

  • Make sure you have the ability to post School-wide Updates on your personal or chair-specific Konstella account. Not sure? Contact president@whittierptaseattle.org.
  • Go to the “Create” button in the upper right corner
  • Click on “Announcement” for a text-only message or “One-Time Event” for something to be added to our calendar (Note: we don’t currently use Sign-up Sheets, Donations, etc on Konstella. We create Sign-Ups using Sign Up Genius and Donations via schoolauction.net or Givebacks.)
  • For Announcements:
    • Click “Select Groups” and choose your audience. “Whittier Elementary” is school-wide, including students not assigned to classrooms. Choose specific classrooms to only contact families who have assigned themselves to those classrooms this school year.
    • Write a Descriptive title
    • Include a description/text of an announcement. Note: if you copy/paste from another application, check there is not an additional space between paragraphs; Konstella automatically adds a space break between paragraphs.
    • Add Attachments, if needed. Note: These will be displayed under your message and, in some cases, will require people to manually click to see the attachment.
    • Add User is used if you have another person you’d like to co-manage the announcement.
    • Publish Immediately or with a time delay, depending on your needs. If you’re going to send an email blast with your message (see below), we request you target the publish date for a respectful day/time, avoiding Monday afternoons, Fridays, and early morning or late evening hours. In the past, we’ve tried to keep these kinds of announcements on Tuesdays and Thursdays (during school hours).
    • Note: You can save a draft if you’re not ready to publish just yet. It can be found if you click on “Whittier Elementary” in the left hand menu and click on “My Creations” next to the “Create” button.
    • Click “Next”
      • Check or uncheck the “Add the activity to the Feed” to have it come up on the rarely seen Activity feed in Konstella
      • “Publish & Notify Users” sends an email blast to everyone in the target audience. We use this sparingly, but it’s needed for Announcements to be actively seen. Note this will send an email blast specific
      • “Publish” adds the Announcement to the Activity feed only. This will likely only be seen by a select number of users.
  • For Events:
    • See above, except note to set a date/time/location.
    • There is also a “Reminder” button where you can opt for users to be reminded of the event. This is automatically set for 1 day. The reminder comes in the form of an email blast to all users in the target audience. Please see above for recommended cadence when sending email blasts. Your email blast will be sent at the time of day your event will take place. This can’t be changed!
    • Note: Your Konstella event will automatically be added to all our public calendars, but not our website right-hand menu. To update it there, please contact president@whittierptaseattle.org.

Takehome Tuesday Flyers

Want to send something home in student folders? We call that “Takehome Tuesday” and it’s something we coordinate with the front office. Here’s how to coordinate one:

  • Prepare the flyer. Your flyer should be B&W but you can request a color for the copy paper. If you use the PTA Canva, you can access one of our past designs or create a new one using our brand packages. You’ll want to save your flyer as a .pdf. Aren’t a user on our Canva Pro account? Reach out for an invite >>
  • Sign-up for a Takehome Tuesday slot on this spreadsheet >>
  • Go to this Shared Drive and look for the folder marked with your requested Takehome Tuesday date
  • Upload your Takehome Tuesday flyer .pdf to the appropriate dated folder
  • Update the spreadsheet with a link to your uploaded flyer in the Drive

I’ll reach out if Rebecca and Monica would like you to come in to copy the flyers!

Fence Signs

We hang signs on the fence areas around the school to help communicate events and volunteer opportunities. To create fence signs, you’ll want to:

  • Create your fence sign. We often make these signs as legal or tabloid sized, print them in color on cardstock, and laminate them. These are usually not printed by Whittier; we go to Office Depot (there’s almost always coupons) or FedEx/Kinko’s. You’ll want at least 4 copies (fence near the front door, 14th Ave gate, 13th Ave gate, and the north end of the 13th Ave fence).
  • Once you have the signs, you’ll want to punch holes in each corner of the sign (ideally not through the paper–only the plastic), grab zip ties from the PTA closet (contact president@whittierptaseattle.org if you’re not sure where this is or how to access it), and use them to mount the fence signs on the fence areas listed above.
  • Please set a reminder to remove them after the event!

Website

To request a change be made to an existing page on our site (or to have a new one added), contact Megan with the website copy, graphics, and URL of the page (if applicable) you’d like to be added or changed.

The Wildchat

Please use this form to submit content for the Wildchat. Questions? Contact Ellen and Andrew.