What is CommLINK?
CommLINK is a subscription service designed for school district communicators. Published 20 times per year, CommLINK provides talking points, text for parent newsletters, links to the Web’s best public relations and education stories, best practice articles, an image collection, and writing and design tips.
Image collection
A big challenge for communications professionals is finding copyright-free, royalty-free imagery at an affordable cost.
Copyright laws prohibit you from using most photos on the Web without permission from the original creator. Paying for images on commercial stock photography sites can get expensive, and stock photos often have restrictions that limit you to one usage.
CommLINK offers you an image collection to save you time and money in your hunt for quality images. Each royalty-free image is immediately available for download and use without any licensing strings attached. You can use these images for any purpose and as frequently as you wish. This collection is unique to CommLINK, so you will not find these images anywhere else on the Web. With fresh images added every month, your cost savings on images can be substantial.
Insights for Parents
Communicating with parents is a fundamental component of a school district communicator’s role. Every month, CommLINK offers a 300-500 word advice column for you to reuse in your publications to communicate with parents. To help reach a broader demographic, Insights for Parents is translated into Spanish.
Examples:
- The changing family portrait: Nontraditional families
- Teen driving: Parenting behind the wheel
- Getting your kids to talk to you
- Managing your child’s food allergies in school
- Improving study habits
- Communicating effectively with your child’s teacher
- Proper use of antibiotics
- Dual credit courses: Prepare your child for the college classroom
- Transitioning to middle school
- Keep kids learning all summer long
- Preparing kids for the SAT and ACT
Wellness Watch
Keep district staff healthy and fit with Wellness Watch, a compilation of articles that offers nutrition, exercise, and general health advice for district staff.
Examples:
- Improving sleep
- Getting back to healthy eating after the holidays
- Complementary and alternative medicine
- Using food diaries to control eating
- Top foods to help fight illness
- Preventing and treating bug bites
Web sites for educators
Pass these useful Web sites to your district’s teachers! We’ve searched the Web and found hidden gems: free sites with lesson plans in all subjects, videos, practice tests, interactive tutorials, portals to connect with other educators, and fun activities for kids.
Grant leads
Every dollar matters, especially during the school funding crisis. We’ll link you to grants and funding opportunities for schools, teachers, and students.
Writing tips
Who has time to sift through Google results or a grammar manual to find the correct usage of commonly-confused terms? Or should it be whom has the time? Crafting and editing text isn’t easy! CommLINK clarifies questions such as when to use further versus farther, affect versus effect, impractical versus impracticable, and uninterested versus disinterested.
Design tips
TASB’s graphic design department provides a monthly design tip to help communications professionals who design school district’s online and/or print materials. Design tips include advice on color, typography, formatting, and paper.
Example:
Add depth with texture. Texture plays an important role in designing materials to be viewed on screen. While solid colors look clean and crisp on paper, they may look flat or washed out on your monitor. Try adding a subtle texture or gradient to your electronic newsletter or web page. You can download plenty of free background images to experiment with at cgtextures.com.
Free Webinars
As part of your CommLINK subscription, you get access to two educational Webinars that address hot topics for school districts. Past Webinars have focused on online social networking, school finance, communicating with the community about difficult issues, and preparing your district’s response to issues like student religious expression and pay for performance.