Using AI to Support Brand Building and School Communications

School PR has never been more important … or, frankly, more complex.

We have our regular, traditional proverbial hats: writing newsletters, highlighting achievements and celebrating successes, website content, social media management, crisis response, media relations, and referendum support - and that’s usually just in the first hour of the day.

These days, add in shaping brand identity, addressing enrollment issues through adjustments to marketing plans, understanding and communicating the complexities of school funding issues and concerns, and the daily shifts of social media algorithms and engagement. Oh … and don’t forget training and coaching other staff members responsible for communications on these things.

Communications is no longer a back-office function—it’s front-line leadership. The increased workload and need for additional services from our area often come at the cost of time: time to be visible in schools, time to build relationships, and time to lead strategically. The more time you have at your disposal to lead, listen, and connect, the stronger your story becomes.

Enter AI.

I’m not talking about handing over your storytelling to artificial intelligence. It's about working smarter with the right prompts, the right structure, and a clear purpose to help ease your workload so you can spend more time doing the high-impact work only you can do—the work that truly moves our profession and our value forward.

I’m going to talk specifically to ChatGPT today, but I recognize that districts address the use of AI in different ways and allow access to only some or none of these tools. Make sure, before you get too far into this, that you know and comply with your district’s guidelines, and don’t be afraid to take some time to get to know the other AI tools as well. They all seem to bring a little something different to the table, and they all just continue to improve and evolve at different rates.

When used effectively, ChatGPT can do so much more than generate copy; it can support your district’s voice, strengthen your brand, help you train others to communicate with consistency and confidence, and give you back the time you need to be in buildings, conversations, and the community. 

Getting Started: Prompting with Purpose

A prompt is your starting point. The more context you provide, the more useful the results. Think of prompting like giving directions to a four-year-old. If you're vague, Johnny, kick the ball—you’re likely not going to get the results you’re hoping for. If you're specific—Johnny, take tiny, toe-touch kicks on the ball moving toward that big goal over there, and then, when you get to that blue cone, take one big, giant kick to score a goal—you’re far more likely to get something usable.

Let’s be real. The output will still vary, and getting to the usable results, for four-year-olds and for AI, takes refinement, practice, and patience.

Here’s a common example:

Let’s say you're writing a newsletter article about a districtwide mental wellness initiative. You might start with, write a newsletter article about our new mental wellness program. You’ll get something generic, and it likely won’t reflect your voice or your community.

Let’s try a stronger prompt:

Write a 200-word newsletter article in a professional but welcoming tone that introduces families to our district’s new mental wellness initiative. The article should highlight our partnership with Jamison Mental Health Services, and note that services are confidential and free to all students. Please include a quote from our school counselor, Mrs. Larson, about how this resource supports students both academically and emotionally.

You can take it a step further by including your own quotes if you have them, or a draft of a message that you may have started. You could also include your intended format, such as “this is for the back page of our printed family newsletter.”

This kind of intentional prompting creates the most value—especially when time is tight or you're juggling competing deadlines. It only takes a minute to add a few additional details, but it can make all the difference in the results you receive.

Get our AI Prompt Essentials Playbook for Educators

Prompting Tips for Better Results

Here are a few tried-and-true strategies that lead to better outputs:

• Start with the audience and purpose: Who is this for? Why are you writing it?
• Address the format: Is this a caption, an email, a news release, or web content?
• Give examples: Include a past article or describe your district's voice (more about this below).
• Set constraints: word count, grade level, tone rules, word-choice edicts, etc.
• Use follow-up prompts: Don’t settle for the first version. Here are some follow-ups to try:
  • Can you make this more concise?
  • Can you elaborate on the part about Mrs. Larson with some background information?
  • Make it sound more like a teacher talking to families, but maintain the district’s overall voice.
  • I don’t like the word “head” in the headline, but I really like the word “capitalize”. Can you give me eight additional headline ideas, four of which maintain using the word “capitalize” and four of which don’t?

The best prompts feel like clear instructions to a capable teammate. You’re not writing the whole thing—you’re guiding the process. The best final products come from trying new things and figuring out what works best for your district and your voice.

Ask ChatGPT for help in creating better prompts, too. Once you’ve finalized your work, don’t be afraid to upload it to ChatGPT and ask how you could have better prompted it to create that final version. 

Building a Branded Voice That Others Can Use

One of the biggest challenges is maintaining your district’s voice across buildings and staff. Whether it's the school’s administrative assistant, or the PTO group writing a family-facing message, or a principal’s monthly newsletter, the outgoing communication represents the district - and it should be branded as such. ChatGPT can help support that consistency across roles.

Here's how:

Define Your Voice

Take a few minutes to write down how your district sounds in communication. Is it academic and polished? Welcoming and down-to-earth? Is humor or sarcasm ever used? What words or phrases are always avoided? Is there a reading level you would like to cater to?

Example:

Our district voice is professional, clear, and welcoming. We use plain language and speak directly to families. We avoid jargon. We do not use emojis in district communications. We write at a 10th-grade reading level and always consider accessibility in our tone.

Not sure what your voice is or how to define it? Let ChatGPT help with that, too!

Upload a sample of your writing…a newsletter article, board message, website intro, or social media post that you believe is a great example of the voice and tone you wish to convey across all communications.

You can prompt something like:

Can you please analyze the following writing examples for specific tone and style, along with any distinctive characteristics of my voice? Then, create a description of this writing style that I can use in future AI prompts to ensure this same style and voice are achieved.

ChatGPT will analyze the sentence structure, word choice, tone, and level of formality, and summarize it in a way you can use as a guide. You can then refine it or add specific rules (like avoiding certain words or using consistent reading levels). This is a great place to start if you’re building a style guide or trying to document voice for others in your district to follow.

Next, Train a Custom GPT

Using ChatGPT’s custom GPT feature (available in ChatGPT Pro by clicking on your photo/profile), you can create a version of ChatGPT trained to follow your voice, preferences, tone, and formatting rules. You can input prompts, upload brand guides, tone guidelines, past newsletters—whatever you think helps define your communications style, tone, and voice.

Once it’s built, you can share that GPT with other communicators in your district. You’re essentially giving them a co-pilot who already knows how you communicate.

For example, the principal asks a school administrative assistant to write a school supply reminder for families. Instead of drafting it cold, they open your custom GPT and type:

Write a short reminder to families about school supply drop-off next Thursday. Include the time (4:00–6:00 p.m.) and location (cafeteria).

With your district-trained GPT, they can refine their communication to something that should very closely resemble the district’s voice and the communications that come from your office. 

Customizing ChatGPT to Your District

The more ChatGPT knows about your district, the more helpful it becomes. You can build that knowledge over time in several ways.

Use Memory (Pro Feature)

If you’re a Pro user, ChatGPT can now remember key facts about your district, style preferences, and ongoing projects. When you activate memory, you won’t need to keep repeating yourself. Here’s what memory can include:

• Your district’s name, mascot, and geographic region
• Your tone and formatting preferences
• Recurring projects like newsletters, campaigns, or referendum timelines
• What kinds of resources or prompts do you often ask for

I suggest periodically testing what ChatGPT is using as its truth about your district by asking/prompting the question: What do you remember about my district?

Then you have the opportunity to add, edit, or delete any part of that memory to ensure it’s using accurate and useful information about your district. If you're working with multiple school districts, you might choose not to use memory and instead include context in each prompt. You can choose the best use case for you and move forward.

Upload Reference Materials

When writing a referendum press release or a website update, upload your draft, previous press releases, or your FAQ. ChatGPT will use those documents to keep your messaging aligned. You can even ask it to find inconsistencies, check for accessibility, or create shorter or longer versions for the particular communications with which you are seeking help writing. 

Check for Bias

While ChatGPT can be a powerful assistant in your communication work, it’s not infallible…and it’s not neutral either.

Like all AI tools, ChatGPT generates content based on patterns it has learned from massive amounts of data, much of which comes from the internet. That means it can sometimes reflect common stereotypes, biases, or assumptions found in those data sources. It might unintentionally reinforce language that lacks cultural sensitivity, oversimplify complex educational issues, or use phrasing that doesn’t align with your district’s values or priorities.

That’s why every output, no matter how well-written, needs a human lens. Be intentional about reviewing generated content for bias, and ask yourself: Does this language reflect how we would speak to our families, staff, and community?

If something feels off, you can prompt ChatGPT to try again with clearer guidance. For example: “This sounds too negative—can you rewrite this in a strengths-based tone?” You can even ask it directly: “Does this message include any language that could be seen as biased or non-inclusive?” The more you teach the tool what matters in your district, the better your results will be over time.

Final Thoughts: The Human Work Still Matters

There’s a lot of conversation about AI replacing communications jobs in schools. And frankly, that’s more than a little terrifying. I would like to think, though, that AI tools that are available to us are here to help—not replace—us.

One of the most valuable benefits of using ChatGPT isn’t just “better” writing (better because, if we’re being honest, my final result is significantly better than anything AI can create for me)—it’s reclaimed time. That’s time I can now spend walking through classrooms and schools instead of stuck behind a keyboard; it’s time I can use to sit down with a teacher who has a great story idea; it’s time to be in buildings, building relationships, listening, observing, and engaging—because that’s where the real stories live. That’s where trust is built.

Our jobs are not being replaced. They’re evolving to allow us to become more strategic, more embedded in leadership, and more essential to district success. Tools like ChatGPT help us shift from constant content production to higher-level thinking, planning, and connection. AI tools can’t replace the judgment or experience that comes from time in our districts; it can’t walk our school halls, meet with our Boards, and it can’t understand the nuanced relationships, trust, and community that we work to build every day.

We’re not being replaced; we’re being refocused.

And in order to NOT be replaceable, we need to adjust, learn, and allow these tools to help us make repetitive work faster, spark better ideas, and support consistency and brand identity across our district teams. Let’s reinvest that time where it matters most: in our schools, our stories, and our people. Let’s keep showing up with our voices, our instincts, and our leadership.

Because if we’ve learned anything from this work, it’s this: If you're not telling your story, someone else is.

Now you have a tool that helps you tell it with clarity, purpose, and impact.