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School districts have options for engaging their community鈥檚 minds in advance of a school tax or budget vote

High school has an oddly pleasant scent when you stumble into an innovation lab filled with metal robot bits and the gently heated plastic of 3-D printers. That鈥檚 where I found myself when I first met Dru at a small school system in upstate New York.

Dru, a young teenager, seemed like an unusual find in the lab. His giant presence and large hands were well-suited for a football field, but now they alternated between a small bit of hard plastic and clacking away at tiny keys.

As an unfamiliar shape began to take life on the screen in front of him, I asked what he was working on.

Turns out, the junior varsity football player was trying to create an easier way to repair his cleats. Unfortunately, the current removal process involved several tools and small, easily lost pieces. He had come down to the innovation lab in hopes of creating a spike-removal tool that could hold extra grips.

Coaching Dru on how to solve his real-world problem was the new innovation teacher, a first-of-its-kind position at the high school and one that was created through funding from a state Performance Improvement Grant.

If you鈥檙e open to learning about that grant now, I owe all the credit to Dru鈥檚 story. That鈥檚 because storytelling taps into how the human brain most easily processes information and makes emotional connections. Passing on finance knowledge to a school community should start then, not with a great chart but with a great story.

Barriers to Engagement

Few adults today are well-informed about the financial picture for their local schools. Data collected in more than 130 school systems nationwide over the last 10 years show that parents, guardians, employees and community members all feel only 鈥渟lightly鈥� informed about school finances, according to the SCOPE Survey run by the National School Public Relations Association. In 2022, an Ipsos poll for Money Masters also found that fewer than two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) are financially literate.

It is easy to explain away their lack of knowledge for reasons such as school finance information being hard to find, confusing or less exciting than the latest Netflix binge. These data should be a concern, though, for any superintendent, school business official, school board or school communicator looking to build informed consent for a bond, millage or budget proposal. Especially because the problem has a potential solution, and all it takes to find the solution is a little brain science.

Many studies focus on how the human brain acquires and processes information. Yet considering how cognition affects an audience鈥檚 openness to key messages is a hallmark of highly effective communicators.

For school finance communications, the work of Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and Thinking, Fast and Slow author Daniel Kahneman is particularly helpful. He theorized two systems for how the brain processes information. His idea was that 鈥淪ystem 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control, [while] System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations.鈥�

Basically, processing with System 1 is easy, but processing with System 2 is hard.

What fits squarely into System 2? Spreadsheets, long lists of bullet points and data charts. What fits nicely into System 1? Stories!

Stories Surmount Barriers

Kindra Hall, a public speaker and best-selling author of Stories That Stick, suggests there are a few key components to great stories. She says they must have:

identifiable characters that people can relate to;

authentic emotions that make people empathize with the character;

a significant moment that stands out from everyday life; and

specific details that engage readers鈥� or an audience鈥檚 imagination.

Some school systems excel at bringing great stories into their finance communications, as illustrated in this excerpt from a news article published in February 2024 by the 20,000-student Rockwood School District in Missouri:

鈥淒uring a recent recess period, Fairway Elementary 4th grader Loralei enjoyed a game of gaga ball with four of her friends, maneuvering her wheelchair around the gaga pit on the playground, smiling, laughing, throwing the ball and dodging. Just three months ago, this activity would not have been possible. ... Lila, a fellow 4th grader, wrote a letter to Krey and the school PTO expressing her desire for a gate for the gaga ball pit so that Loralei could get into it. Without the gate, students had to step over a low wall to enter. The Fairway PTO funded the gate, and, in mid-November, Loralei had a surprise waiting for her when she looked out of teacher Kaitlyn Flora鈥檚 classroom window. ... Once Rockwood Facilities installed the soft surface over the mulch in late December, Loralei was also able to travel to the gaga ball pit much more easily.鈥�

Instead of the typical news story where it鈥檚 announced that a school offers its thanks to such and such group for funding a particular project, Rockwood School District found an identifiable character, in student Loralei, and brought to life a special moment for her that told the story of how their school facilities funds and parent-teacher donations are used. Unsurprisingly, this article earned an Award of Excellence in NSPRA鈥檚 2024 Publications and Digital Media Excellence Awards contest.

Another example of excellent financial storytelling comes from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for Washington state, which oversees K-12 education for 295 public school systems and six state-tribal education compact schools. To build support for funding universal school meals in the state, the office developed a . It featured footage in school cafeterias and interviews with a superintendent, school cooks and staff overseeing nutrition, health and wellness. Without a complex data chart in sight, the video shows the positive impact of financing a school meal program with stories like this one from a cook:

鈥淎 lot of kids go home during the Christmas break. They don鈥檛 have food. So they鈥檙e so happy to come back to school. Actually, the reason I became a lunch lady is because I wanted to give the kids food, that didn鈥檛 get it at home like I didn鈥檛. Well, I was always happy to go to school just because I get to eat. We didn鈥檛 have a lot of food, and when you go to school, you know you鈥檙e gonna eat and that鈥檚 worth going to school.鈥�

The video, also earned an Award of Excellence in NSPRA鈥檚 2024 publications contest.

Story-Sharing Essentials

You can be a great school finance storyteller, too.

Start by closing your eyes and picturing one student with whom you interacted recently (identifiable character). What was the student doing and learning about (authentic emotion, significant moment)? Who was teaching the student, and what special equipment, supplies or facilities were they using (specific details)?

Then ask yourself, how did school finances make that moment possible?

Now you have all the essentials for a great school finance story.

To create more receptive audiences for your school finance messages, try starting every presentation or article on complex funding topics with this bit of storytelling brain science. Each story you tell will lead to greater engagement for your listeners, and that engagement will help to build more trust between your school district and its community. 

Mellissa Braham is associate director of the National School Public Relations Association in Rockville, Md.