A Peek at the Canvas: January
by Frank Caracciolo
The most recent episode of The Blank Canvas with Frank Caracciolo is out now. Released on January 17th, the episode features a conversation with communications consultant Marilyn Santucci.
They discuss the the joys of sharing the great stories that happen in and around the Lester B. Pearson School Board, the stress of crisis communications, and more.
Frank Caracciolo: And today we have Marilyn Santucci from the communications team at Lester B. Pearson School Board to start our new season. Marilyn’s here. Let’s get started.
Good morning, Marilyn. How are you today?
Marilyn Santucci: I’m great. How are you?
Frank Caracciolo: I’m good. Can you just tell everybody your full name and your position at Leslie Pearson School Board and what you do there?
Marilyn Santucci: So, my name is Marilyn Santucci. I am the communications consultant for the Lester B Pearson School Board, and basically in a very short summary, my job is storytelling. I tell the stories of the board through video articles, photography. We share that content through different channels such as social media, through a newsletter, through the media as well.
So yeah, I would categorize myself as a storyteller.
Frank Caracciolo: Oh, that’s cool. And you… you I know because I get to participate in that: The Pearson News is a big part of where those stories go, and then they get distributed out once a month throughout the school board and to all of our schools and highlighting a lot of different programs and initiatives and projects and… and then of course, personalities. You get to feature certain people that we’ve talked about and seen together… We met, well, through the Communications department, but also we were on a gig, I guess I’d call it, and we were watching the John Rennie Senior Jazz band perform jazz… ah, senior and junior… at a music competition and we were both kind of like in the in the area, and I said, ‘Oh my God, a familiar face,’ and so we really kind of connected there and then went on from there, right.
And you’ve invited me and allowed me to write a couple stories for the Pearson News, which, just before we got on, we were chatting and I was like, I can’t wait. I’m going to write more because it’s… it gets infectious. Like you want to do more, and you want to share more, and I get to go out like you. A lot of your job is out in the field, like you’re rarely in the office and you’re out there meeting people and telling stories, I guess, about great things.
Anything come to mind recently about your job, like, within an event or something that’s going on that’s maybe even coming up that you’re going to cover?
Marilyn Santucci: So, I recently worked on a project for the Endeavor program over at Place Cartier, I’m doing a… I would say a program spotlight video on them, and that was just really rewarding. The program involves students with intellectual disabilities.
So, it was really great to see the good that’s coming from our school board. You know how there’s these dedicated teachers that are working with this group of students, and filming and meeting the students and the staff was extremely rewarding. And that’s the thing that I love most about my job, is that I get to meet all different types of people.
I mean, there’s so much that I’m working on. I really think it’s important to spotlight, you know, shine a light on our staff. There are so many incredible teachers that are doing wonderful things. So, I’m actually interviewing two librarians next week, and we’ll be discussing their roles and why, you know, libraries are so important. Why reading is so important. But I also like to kind of, you know, figure out why these individuals pursued this career, because I think that there’s a story there as well. So, a lot of what’s coming up from me is those types of stories profiling staff, and students as well. We’re always on the lookout for students who are doing incredible things, and we’re always looking for people to nominate students as well. But right now, I would say that my focus has really been on staff because I think it’s important to shine a light on them.
Frank Caracciolo: And that’s why I have you here today to open our season of the podcast. And so, and I thought about that because I often come and visit and say hi in the morning as I come into the board. I thought like it is, it’s something that people don’t realize, and I like to shine the light too on our staff and the students and the teachers. About the fabulous things that are going on throughout, and I think you’re one of those things, right? So, you are a person that gets to see what I get to see. So, I think we relate really well together because we’re out there and you go like, wow, did you see this art show or did you see this concert or did you, you know, did you know this was happening. And so that I think becomes a real big part of our role at the school board is to make other people aware and parents, and the other teachers see initiatives that are going on and then they say, hey, can I do that kind of show at my school or… and I say, well, you know, you can contact communications and get the word out about like a fundraiser or, you know, I think they’ve done sock drives where they’re collecting socks for homeless and… and so it’s it becomes a really big part of the school board is the Communications Department.
Can you expand on that just a little bit about the role of communications at the school board? Because I mean I think you and I were scheduled for last week, and we had the bus crisis within our school board.
Marilyn Santucci: Yes, we did.
Frank Caracciolo: So those things come up. But what is the importance of the communications department that you find that helps us who are outside of the communications role.
Marilyn Santucci: So, I mean, yes, a big part of my job is telling these stories, these happy stories, these, these wonderful stories. But there is a component where if there is an incident at a school or if there is some sort of, you know, issue with the buses, for example, we’re the ones who create the communication content that is then sent out to our community. So whether that’s by e-mail on a social media post phone calls, sometimes we’re the ones who create that content that is then shared with our communities.
So for example, with the bus situation last week, our primary goal was to make sure that we had all the right information, that we can then share with the parents. Because it was concerning for a lot of parents, who really relied on the buses to get their children to school. So, our job was to create content, to create messaging that informed them, kept them up to date, and reassured them that we were looking into the situation. Ultimately it was out of our hands. I mean, it wasn’t in our control, we weren’t, you know, we’re not the bus company.
But yeah, so there’s a lot of that as well. So we’re not only it’s not only the fun, creative storytelling, there’s also those more, you know, everyday communications that we need to work on as a team.
