West Des Moines Schools Win National Public Relations Award

The office of school/community relations at the West Des Moines Community School District has been awarded the Golden Achievement Award by the National School Public Relations Association for its project, Expanding Facebook to Our Schools.

It also received an Award of Merit in the Excellence in Writing category of the publications contest for the article “Honoring His Homecoming Queen.”

For the second year in a row, the West Des Moines district is the only school from Iowa to receive the Golden Achievement Award, which recognizes exemplary work in all aspects of school public relations, communication, marketing and engagement. In 2011, the district won the award for public relations efforts with the Booster Pak Program.

The Facebook project began at the beginning of the 2011-12 school year and, with the cooperation of each building, the district had created a Facebook page for each of its 14 schools by mid-October. Each building shares announcements, student achievements and fun photos of special events and everyday happenings.