Ohio SOAR Network districts share their “Year in the Portrait of a Graduate,” highlighting how they amplified the story of their Portraits and overall district transformation efforts.
When a school district embarks on the journey of creating a Portrait of a Graduate, it signifies a steadfast commitment to transformative change. This endeavor is far more than a one-time effort of crafting a Portrait and displaying it on a wall. Instead, a district’s vision—the Portrait of a Graduate—becomes the guiding North Star, a collaborative creation shaped by the voices of students, staff, parents, and the community. It serves as a potent Wayfinder, marking just the initial step in an enduring voyage.
To ensure the seamless integration and sustainability of this vision, it must be put into practice throughout the district. This practice extends to classrooms, events, and within the community itself. True success emerges when this vision is woven into the fabric of strategic plans, people and culture systems, professional development plans, and more.
However, the transformative work will lack endurance without the use of storytelling and strategic communications to shape the narrative and engage stakeholders. By adopting a strategic approach in implementing the Portrait of a Graduate, districts can amplify the Portrait’s impact, kindle action, and motivate individuals to come together and advocate for the Portrait.
The Battelle for Kids Marketing and Communications team had the pleasure of collaborating with communication leads from districts in our 2023-2024 Ohio SOAR Network, which included:
- Anthony Wayne Local Schools
- Berea City Schools
- Brunswick City Schools
- Circleville City Schools
- Hilliard City Schools
- Lakewood City Schools
- Medina City Schools
- Milford Exempted Village Schools
- Strongsville City Schools
- Washington Local Schools
- West Clermont Local Schools
- Willoughby-Eastlake Local Schools
For over 20 years, the SOAR Network has supported innovative leaders to affect transformation in school districts across Ohio. This past year, professional learning communities of superintendents, chief academic officers, and communication leaders met to share best practices and work to accelerate their district’s vision—the Portrait of a Graduate—no matter where the district was in its journey.
Click here to learn more about the Ohio SOAR Network.
In the final SOAR Network convening of the 2023-2024 school year, seven of our district communication leads shared their “Year in the Portrait of a Graduate,” highlighting the ways they have amplified the story of their Portraits and their overall district transformation efforts.
Here are some of their strategic communication and storytelling strategies from this past year:
Anthony Wayne Local Schools
At Anthony Wayne, a school district in Northwest Ohio serving more than 4,000 students, their Portrait of a General focuses on the durable skills of adaptability and flexibility, collaboration and communication, critical thinking, empathy, and a learner’s mindset. This year, their communication efforts highlighted their Portrait to practice efforts in human capital, staff choice with professional learning and growth, student deeper learning experiences, student leadership opportunities, and community engagement.
Rebecca Schwan, the district’s communications specialist, shared with our cohort innovative programs developed this past school year, including the launch of their Generals Network, a new program designed to help students discover how their interests and talents align with future careers. The AW Generals Network connects K-12 students to employers, recruiters, organizations, and educational institutions, with the goal of providing them with opportunities for career awareness, exploration, and planning. Further, the Network serves to bolster the district’s mission to empower students to be future-ready, a core focus of any Portrait of a Graduate initiative.
Watch how one class is involved in community service:
Watch how a new program promotes future-ready, deeper learning:
Brunswick City Schools
Located in Northeast Ohio, Brunswick City Schools has a team of over 800 staff members serving more than 6,400 students. Dawn Boylan Allar, community relations coordinator, highlighted the year in the Journey of a Blue Devil, the district’s Portrait, which focuses on the durable skills of communication, adaptability, critical thinking, empathy, and responsibility.
This past year, Brunswick launched a new podcast called “Stories of the Journey,” dedicated to sharing the transformative power of their district’s vision. The podcast gives the district a platform to tell the stories of the real-world impact of the integration of durable skills in the students’ learning experiences. Allar also shared about the district’s third annual Excellence Showcase, an event that highlighted excellence in their school buildings, with each exhibition tied to a particular durable skill selected by the students.
Watch videos produced by Brunswick highlighting their Portrait in Practice
Circleville City Schools
Circleville City Schools’ Director of Communication Darci Valentine shared the success and excitement generated from the district’s first-ever student-led State of the Schools event. The district, located just south of Columbus, had a goal to host an academic event as exciting as prom, where students would be center stage, and the community would engage with their Portrait of a Tiger durable skills. These include adaptability, communication, critical thinking, empathy, and perseverance.
The event featured the superintendent’s State of the Schools address, but also included a Student Showcase, with various exhibits from students educating the community about how the Portrait’s durable skills are put into practice in their learning experiences alongside rigorous academic content. High school communication intern students helped determine the theme, which had a red carpet and Academy Awards vibe. They also served as emcees during the event. From branded t-shirts to student-produced videos, the entire show highlighted the importance of student agency.
Watch the student-produced promotional video:
Medina City School District
Located in Northeast Ohio, Medina City Schools serves over 6,400 students, taking a student-centered learning approach using its Portrait of a Bee and deeper learning framework to guide the way. The Portrait of a Bee focuses on the durable skills of respectful citizen, responsible decision maker, collaborator, communicator, problem solver, and resilient lifelong learner.
Director of Community Relations Amy Busby showcased how the district highlighted innovation this past school year in relationship to the Portrait. This included their Portrait to Practice event. This event included 60 teachers and students from all grade levels exhibiting the integration of their durable skills into the classroom. The community filled the district’s high school for the event, which also featured performances, artwork, and more.
Medina also began to pilot their Capstone program in grades five, eight, and 12. Here, students are given the opportunity to display voice and choice and self-directed learning while engaging in a problem they wish to solve.
Strongsville City Schools
With nearly 5,500 students in this Northeast Ohio school district, the Model Mustang continues to be the guiding North Star for the community. The Model Mustang, Strongsville’s version of the Portrait of a Graduate, focuses on the durable skills of preparing students to be future-ready by being innovative, resilient, collaborative, global, and empowered.
Dan Foust, communications coordinator for the district, shared with the SOAR Communications Cohort several strategic communication strategies he has employed this past school year to continue to reinforce the Model Mustang both internally and externally.
First, he created an internal “one-pager” to create a quick reference for staff members on each durable skill. The one-pager defines the competency, provides a rubric for how a student displays the skill, and more. To externally educate and reinforce the Model Mustang and the durable skills, the district provides a direct mail annual calendar of events to its stakeholders where each month highlights and showcases the stories of the Portrait and how students are bringing the Portrait to practice within their learning environments and extra-curricular activities.
Foust also shared how his superintendent, Dr. Cameron Ryba, continues to use his weekly video series “60 Seconds with the Superintendent” to tell the stories of the Model Mustang as well. Check out an episode of the series:
Washington Local Schools
Located in Northwest Ohio and covering 17 square miles in Toledo, Washington Local Schools serves approximately 7,000 students. They are guided by their community’s collective vision called the Portrait of a Panther, which emphasizes the durable skills of empathy, communication, adaptability, critical thinking, integrity, and learner’s mindset.
Katie Peters, Ed.D, who serves as the district’s communications director, shared how they diligently work to continue to seed the story of their Portrait in everything they do from photo backdrops showcasing the durable skills to student video interviews. Dr. Peters also ensures that nearly every social media post ties into the Portrait and specifically highlights one of the competencies. She also shared how they spotlight students via nominations from staff members. These student spotlights recognize students who have displayed one of the six durable skills. They also give out Portrait of a Panther Awards.
It’s not just students they recognize. They also present Portrait of a Panther certificates to community and business partners for displaying the qualities featured in the district’s vision.
Willoughby-Eastlake City School District
For Willoughby-Eastlake, their experience this past year was on a different track. The district spent this past year planning and designing their Portrait of a Graduate with their community. Director of Communications and Community Relations Gina Kevern shared their experiences with the group.
The district, located in Northeast Ohio, serves more than 7,000 students. This year, they went on the journey of creating their community’s shared vision, a plan they called “Roadmap 24.” Kevern shared the touchpoints and tactics they deployed to engage their community, staff members, students, business partners, and more in developing their Portrait. This was a well-developed plan that started in August 2023 and was ongoing each month of the school year.
Community engagement is a core element in the work of creating a collective, unifying vision in preparing every student to be ready for the future. Through staff meetings, coffee talks, business roundtables, civic roundtables, and advisory councils held throughout the school year, their Portrait’s durable skills were finally determined through their Portrait of a Graduate Summit held in April. Here, the community discussed what it means to be future-ready and the purpose of having a Portrait for the school district.
Kevern shared the success in determining the direction of the Portrait of a Graduate and the district’s goal of launching it for the 2024-2025 school year.
