Lauren Haydon

Mr. Walters

Public Relations

11 Oct. 2019

Interview #1

For my first interview of the year, I was fortunate enough to speak with Mr. James

Driskill, the Director of Communications for Frisco ISD. From him, I was able to learn more

about the distinctions between the realms of internal versus external communications and how

both functions play a role in branding. As well, we were able to discuss the function of social

media in the communications field and how FISD is working to incorporate it into their branding

strategy.

To start our conversation, I asked Mr. Driskill a little bit about his educational

background and how he found himself in this role. Much to my excitement, he graduated from

Texas A&M (currently one of my top contenders for where I would like to attend) with a degree

in Public Relations. Before he was on the administrative side of things, he was actually a teacher.

His path in getting to this role was unique as only three other people in his organization can say

they taught before. As I continue to go on interviews, the ways that people evolve into their roles

continues to fascinate me. For a long time, the only connection I ever had to the business world

was my dad. He has stayed with the same company for almost twenty-five years. While he has

had job changes within AT&T, they have stayed relatively related. As I hear about professionals

who have had completely different careers within their professional lives, it feels comforting to

know that I have room to move around in order to find what makes me happy throughout my

career path. It does not have to be a straight line: it can get a little twisty.
 Next, I ask Mr. Driskill if he could give me a loose definition of what his job is and how

it plays a role in the functioning of the school district. Being the Director of Communications

involves many different components. Most of what he does is heavily involved with media

production in both the written and visual form. This all impacts how the relationship between the

Frisco ISD brand the community. Within the school district, there is not a distinct marketing

team and because of that, the communications department is critical. Public relations is their

marketing strategy which makes Mr. Driskills’ job all the more critical. From the website all the

way to newsletters, he deals with it all. A big part of keeping the public informed with the

happenings within the district is how they perceive not only the news that is being reported to

them, but also how accessible it is. This further improves their brand by portraying them as a

district that has a passion for wanting to best serve the community. Given that school districts

have such a unique market to cater to, it is important that they are careful to attend to this

consumer. Families value this genuine and communicative side of the school district.

With this brand image as the goal, Mr. Driskill oversees a plethora of channels of

communication between the district and the public. Magazines, website articles, newsletters, are

all just a few to name. Managing these is one of the biggest parts of his role. He told me that a lot

of what is done in this division is actually done through writers that are on his team. This allows

for the pieces that are released from the organization to be uniformed and professional.

Consequently, a unified image comes across.

Another tool that Frisco has come to adopt is social media. Anyone at Centennial High

School has at least one teacher that has a Twitter account for their subject area. From the handle,

they tweet out almost everything. From his or her attendance at school events, all the way to

photos from class that day, teachers have begun to connect with students, parents, and
community members using this platform just recently. I for one, love this. Having this touch

point with my school makes me feel as if they genuinely enjoy what they are doing at school and

thus makes me more inclined to enjoy certain subjects that I normally loathed (the day I was

featured on the AP Physics I Twitter account was the day I suddenly began loving the class).

Given that this sector of marketing has become so prominent, I asked Mr. Driskill a little bit

about the idea behind it. His answers shocked me a little bit as he said that the district was a bit

reluctant to get on board with the concept. However, as he explained why, things began to make

more sense. Anytime a school tweets out a photo of a student, they have to have a release form

indicating that it is okay for his or her face to be shown online. As well, there are several

sensitivities that can be disastrous if not checked. Knowing the prominence of social media in

this day and age, Frisco put together an acceptable use and best practices guide for the district to

use. This has allowed for schools to be able to use the platform in a way that both serves the

needs of their students, but also furthers the brand of Frisco ISD. The biggest request that the

district administration asks of their teachers is that they tell their story and stay true to it. That

authentic persona that each staff members conveys when discussing things that are unique to

them allows for an accurate representation of the diverse personalities that are across the district.

However, when important messages need to be communicated, the strategy changes. Part of his

role is to send out images and graphics that schools must use on their Twitter, Instagram, and

Facebook pages as a way to communicate various messages. This allows for crisp and unified

communication across the board.

Another big part of the field of public relations in general is crisis management. This is

often what people involved with the field associate with PR and for a long time, I was one of

those people. However, I have been surprised to learn how little there is a need for clean up team
to take action. After some thought, in this context, that does make sense. As many problems as

there can be throughout the school year, there is not one every day. Therefore, Mr. Driskill’s

estimate that this is about 15% of his job is logical. He would go into crisis mode when a student

may something that they should not towards the district or if someone were to threaten the safety

of students. From here, most of his job is communicating with the public what exactly happened,

the course of action taken, and the end result.

In wrapping up our conversation, I asked Mr. Driskill for any advice that he would give

someone, such as myself, who is hoping to enter the PR field. His main word of advice was to be

as well rounded as possible in all areas. Public relations is not just one sector of business- it is a

lot of things happening at one time. The better prepared I am to handle that, the better I will be in

the long run. As well, writing in AP style has come up a ton in his line of work so he also

suggested that I familiarize myself with that. In his role, it can be discouraging to be dealing

with some of the “nonsense” that happens in his day to day work routine. Working with students

will always have its challenges. Kids can be crazy! However, he finds joy in being called by

schools who effectively dealt with some of these issues. Hearing administrators gush about how

relieved they are that a problem has been solved, makes all of the craziness worth it.

Interview Questions: James Driskill

1. What is your specific job title?

Director of Communications
Involved with that: Managing different components:
● Community relations
● Website (district and campus)
○ Web based tools
● Open records and public record requests
○ Now moved to legal department
 ● Writers
○ Magazine
○ Website
○ Newsletters
○ Bi-monthly parent newsletter
■ All sorts of newsletters
● Video and Social media
○ Videographers
○ Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
● Media contacts
● Incidents at schools
○ Help them at schools
○ Incidents that occur
Brand of Frisco ISD consistent
● Graphic designer
○ Asked him for a rebrand
○ Google doc templates
○ Needing people to pay attention to the brand
○ Social Media is unpredictable
○ Branding class happens tomorrow
○ Maintaining a brand
■ Communicate across the board
○ Social Media and teaches
■ Department that said you should use social media
■ “Dragged our feet”
■ Came up with a best practices guide for campuses
■ Student images and release forms
■ Beware of sensitivities
■ Teachers should be telling their stories through their social media
2. What divisions are there within the Public Relations department?
a. Crisis Management vs. General Communication
i. Students say things that they should not and that would be crisis
management
ii. Setting up a call and such for those situations would be 15%-20% of the
time
iii. The other portion of the time is getting the general communications out
1. Social Media and what not
2. The images that they will use on Social Media
3. How closely do you work with Marketing and Advertising teams?
a. In relation to us, marketing is in his department
 b. Paid advertising comes out of the community relations department
c. Array of outlets for people to advertise in
4. What parts of your job are the most rewarding/ challenging?
a. A lot of phone calls for campuses when things are going wrong they turn to him
to talk through problems
b. Helping campuses get through the hard parts
c. Hard: dealing with nonsense
5. What advice would you give to someone who is considering going into PR?
a. Really focus on my writing skills and understand AP style
b. Be well rounded in all areas
c. Technical skills and know how to communicate across the board
d. Always be ready to do several things
Would you say you wanted to go into more PR/ Communications or e involved in
education?
● Three out of twelve were teachers and graduated from A&M with a PR and
Communications degree
● PR is a growing field and it has become a lot bigger and have grown wildly in education
● Career in technology