Teacheradio(sm)
Today more than ever, parents are driving their kids to and from school. Now you can reach those car bound parents with Teacheradio!
It’s like having your own professional radio station informing your commuter parents about important school activities every time they drop off or pick up their child. They just tune in the designated radio frequency listed on a sign by your school.
Here's your opportunity to remind faculty, parents, and students about upcoming PTA meetings, assemblies, band concerts, fund raising activities, or sporting events while they are parking or waiting in line to drop off or pick up their student. They just tune in and listen to your Teacheradio infomercial in the privacy of their car.
Students, parents, and faculty will get on the spot information and look forward each day to new announcements. What a fun way to inform, remind, and increase participation!
Teacheradio will turn that name on your school into a friendly educator informing everyone who drives by 24 / 7 / 365.
(Please
read the following recent article from the Tampa Tribune!)
70
Broadcast News
These
days, schools can share important information with parents through Web sites and
e-mail.
But
several Pasco County schools, while embracing those computer-age methods, also
have reverted to an old- style technology - radio broadcasts.
By
establishing low-power radio stations, schools can broadcast announcements about
school events to parents as they sit in their cars waiting to drop off children
in the morning or pick them up in the afternoon.
``Parents
love it,'' said Lori Yusko, the school district's communications director.
``What a great way to communicate.''
The
broadcasts have limited range - perhaps a half-mile from the school. Eager
listeners shouldn't expect a wide-variety of programming selection. Mostly, the
schools treat their audiences to a series of announcements played over and over.
Gulfside
Elementary is one of the latest converts to the broadcasting cause.
The
school began its radio station, which it calls the Power Pelican, this academic
year. Principal John Shafchuk and Assistant Principal Chris Clayton, with
occasional help from students, tape roughly four minutes worth of announcements
a couple of times a week.
The
announcements are played on a continuous loop from 9 to 9:45 a.m. and 3:30 to 4
p.m. on school days. Parents sitting in a line of cars can tune in to 96.7 FM to
listen.
``We
share a lot of good things going on in the school,'' Clayton said. ``The signal
goes to the immediate area. With the trees, we're lucky if it goes to a
half-mile radius. But if you're on the roads near the school, you can pick it
up.''
The
school has installed a sign to remind parents they can tune in while their
engines are idling.
Clayton
said he learned about the radio stations during an assistant principals meeting
and persuaded Gulfside's school advisory council to buy the equipment.
Gulfside
became a Title 1 school this year, which means it gets extra federal money
because it has a large percentage of low-income students. One thing Title 1
schools are expected to do in return is improve communications with parents, and
the radio station is a step in that direction, Clayton said.
Several
other schools also operate low-power radio broadcasts, including Anclote (89.9
FM), Calusa (89.3 FM), Cotee River (87.9 FM) and Hudson (92.7 FM) elementary
schools.
Fox
Hollow Elementary recently installed radio equipment and plans to begin
broadcasting this month, Yusko said. Fox Hollow will be found at 90.9 on the FM
dial.
Normally,
the Cotee River broadcast is updated once a week with information about PTA
meetings, awards and similar announcements.
``It's
nice. People like it,'' Baird said.
Cotee
River has had the broadcasts for about four or five years, she said.
Former
assistant principal Chris Dunning initiated the Cotee River broadcast, Baird
said. Dunning became principal at Calusa Elementary, which also now has a
broadcast.