CCSD's Four-Person Communications Team Wins Five National Awards, Competing Against Districts Nationwide

The Cherokee County School District has earned five national awards for communications excellence from the National School Public Relations Association, the organization announced this month. For a four-person team serving a district of more than 40 schools, that's a remarkable haul, and it places CCSD among the top-performing school communications programs in the country.

NSPRA is the leading professional organization for school district communications, with entries judged annually by industry professionals from across the country. Its awards program is one of the few national benchmarks that allows school districts, large and small, urban and rural, to be evaluated on equal footing. Earning recognition here isn't a participation trophy; submissions are scored against defined standards of excellence, and many districts walk away empty-handed.

CCSD's top honor, an Excellence award, went to Focus on the Future, a guide designed to help students and families navigate the district's high school Career Pathways programs. Career Pathways offerings at Cherokee County high schools let students pursue industry-recognized credentials and hands-on training in fields ranging from healthcare to information technology, before they ever walk across a graduation stage. For parents trying to help a teenager map out a future, a clear, well-designed guide to those options is genuinely useful, and national judges apparently agreed.

A Merit award recognized Elevate the Excellence: At a Rate No One Can Match, an infographic making the case, in visual form, that CCSD's student performance growth justifies what Cherokee County property owners invest in their schools. That kind of direct, data-driven communication to taxpayers is harder to execute well than it looks, and the recognition reflects it.

Three additional publications each received Honorable Mention recognition: CCSD Connections, the district's monthly e-newsletter for families and the broader community; Class Act, the annual back-to-school magazine distributed to families, employees, and community members; and District Delegate, the monthly newsletter keeping the district's employees informed. Together, those three publications represent the steady, unglamorous work of keeping tens of thousands of people connected to what's happening inside their local schools, week in, week out.

All five awards came from a team of just four people: Chief Communications Officer Barbara Jacoby, Director Carrie McGowan, Coordinator Penny Dempsey, and Administrative Assistant Stefanie Gibbons. The Cherokee County School District serves students across Woodstock, Canton, Ball Ground, and surrounding Cherokee County communities.