One of my favorite projects with one of my favorite people. Back in 2019, when schools only had to worry about snow days, Scott Walmer wrote a snow day song for when we would have to call for a school closure in Flagstaff. The result, an ear worm of a song and a meeting of creative minds created a low budget music video.
Located on the Navajo Nation, Leupp Public School is an incredible community asset. Working with school leaders we created this video to highlight how the community is providing an incredible learning environment that also seeks to connect Navajo culture and language to a new generation.
Like most organizations in the times of COVID, the Arizona School Public Relations Association needed to pivot to an online event. Working with stakeholders across the state, I worked to create a live event that highlighted deserving school public relations professionals that could be shared with stakeholders throughout the state. The result was not only a successful event, but requests for technical support from other organizations nationally about how we pulled off this event.
There were lots of questions about testing with COVID-19 when it comes to public schools. This video was to highlight one of the many mitigation strategies used by the Flagstaff Unified School District to keep facilities open in 2021.
“We are competing with every messenger, public and private, vying for our stakeholder's attention. Luckily, we can take advantage of these tectonic changes to maximize the effectiveness of our messages in reaching our targeted audiences.“
“Unfortunately, revoking the internet accessibility, while enhancing security, limited our ability to hold school as a number of our systems were simultaneously taken down by that one decision – requiring that we close schools until our regular business systems and back-up systems are fully available,” Fountain said.
“We feel that we have a responsibility to offer this tool to our community in order to protect the safety of our students, providing methods for confidential disclosure when there is something serious that is troubling them,” says Flagstaff Unified School District spokesman Zachery Fountain. “Our goal is to enhance the student’s learning experience and limit any roadblocks to a student’s success, giving everyone the opportunity to succeed. This is one more tool for our teams to help students.”
In addition to actors from schools across Flagstaff Unified School District (one of whom was Emma herself), she worked with Zachary Fountain and Coconino High School Principal Stacie Zanzucchi, so “making all the schedules line up” was the hardest part.
Since starting Monday, Fountain has been visiting the various schools throughout the district to meet FUSD’s administrators, teachers and students.
"The mock crash event was hosted before prom to “highlight the repercussions that come with poor choices,” said Zachery Fountain, a spokesman for the Dysart Unified School District, which helped stage the event."
"The reminder was included in the morning announcements, and was reiterated on the public address system several times throughout the day, said Zachery Fountain, a district spokesman."
"The information space is just as important as the physical space anymore, because it has that ability to snowball at a really rapid pace."
Lastly, the Flagstaff Unified School District Communications and Public Relations Director, Zachery Fountain, was recognized during the STEMMY Awards for his ongoing efforts to assist and promote STEM City. Zach has helped plan and execute the annual STEM Celebration both in-person at the NAU Skydome and virtually, led the production of last year’s STEMMY Awards, promoted STEM City’s FULL STEAM AHEAD program, and has continued to advocate for each and every STEM City event both during a pandemic and in addition to his full time job.
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