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Having lived in the Kyrene School
District for the past decade, Jennifer
Grentz knows what’s been going on in one
of the Valley’s most respected school
districts.
She’s heard the calls for improved
communication between the district and
parents.
Now it’s her job to facilitate that
improved communication as the district
looks to leave behind a bitterly
contested recall election for a
Governing Board member and move forward
under the leadership of newly hired
Superintendent David Schauer.
From the first day of her new job as
director of community relations and
marketing, Grentz was thrown into the
fire to quickly learn the ropes at
Kyrene.
She began her employment with Kyrene the
day before the Governing Board voted to
expand the district’s sex education
curriculum to include more information
at a younger age.
“I actually liked that my first few days
were really busy,” she said, seated at a
conference table amidst a few sporadic
boxes and paperwork strewn about her
still largely-empty corner office on the
second floor of Kyrene’s central
administration building.
“I got to connect. I got to meet people
right away and learn the systems that
are in place.”
With the sex education media storm
behind her, Grentz can now unpack her
boxes, settle into her office and begin
to look at the best ways to improve
Kyrene’s communication weaknesses and
maintain its strengths.
An October 2005 communication audit
found that Kyrene struggles with
creating a “two-way flow of
communication.”
Grentz said she has reviewed that report
and that it has “a lot of really good
things that need to be implemented and
looked at.”
But she also said the district’s
communications troubles may sometimes be
exaggerated.
“I don’t think (communication) is a huge
issue that’s been the downfall of the
district,” she said, but acknowledged
there’s room for improvement.
“Although the information is out there,
we need to be more proactive in getting
it to (parents).”
She said one of her first goals is to
find out from parents “what they want to
know that (the district) hasn’t been
informing them about.”
Based on her initial observations,
addressing community concerns is one of
the district’s communications strengths,
Grentz said.
“If someone has a question or a comment
or a concern I think (district staff) a
really good job of communicating with
their constituents,” she said.
She said she wants to explore new and
unique ways to get information to
parents.
“It’s not always just a newsletter,” she
said. “There’s a lot of other ways to
communicate with people.”
She declined to offer too many specific
suggestions for novel communications
methods, saying she hasn’t yet fully
explored their feasibility and doesn’t
want to throw around ideas that may not
be possible. She did say, however, that
she’d like to create an RSS feed of
district news.
An RSS feed is a periodically updated
list of headlines delivered directly to
a user’s internet Web browser. When the
district adds news to the feed, the user
would see that news on his or her
computer, allowing online news to be
delivered to users without having to
actively search for it.
She said she’d also like to hold parent
focus groups to hear suggestions and
concerns. She said it’d be important to
hold the forums in the evening at the
schools in parents’ own neighborhoods to
maximize convenience.
Interviewed by Wrangler News just
a week after beginning her job, Grentz
said she did not yet have enough
experience or knowledge of Kyrene’s
internal communication methods to speak
very specifically about its strengths
and weaknesses or a plan to improve it.
Schauer, the district superintendent,
said he's enthusiastic about Grentz's
new role.
“We’re really pleased to move forward
with filling this position because we
have had this need for quite a while,”
Schauer said. “It’s a long time coming
and we think its going to be very
helpful to the organization in terms of
making sure that people are familiar
with the work that we are doing and
educated about the issues that are
facing the district.
“And Jen’s the person to get that done
for us.”
Her other responsibilities include media
relations, advertising and website
content.
She said one of her primary media goals
is to get positive news out to the
public, “helping people understand that
good education is happening” in Kyrene.
She also hopes to implement more
consistent messaging and branding across
Kyrene’s marketing and public relations
materials, as was suggested by the
communication audit.
A long-time Arizona resident, Grentz
grew up in Scottsdale, graduating from
Chaparral High School before earning a
degree in English from Arizona State
University.
After stints with Fiesta Mall and Mesa
Public Schools, Grentz worked in
marketing for the Ira A. Fulton School
of Engineering at ASU before accepting
the Kyrene position.
She said her experience at ASU blends
well with her new job.
“This is the foundation for those kids,”
she said. “A lot of them will be going
to ASU in the future.”
She said her 10 years living in the
Kyrene Corridor before coming to Kyrene
will be beneficial in her job.
“I think it’s helpful because I have
some background of the school system,”
she said.
“You have an appreciation when everyone
pretty much loves the school system,
where everyone is pretty much trying to
move into the district.”
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