This one includes a bit of back-story.
The First Revision
The Virginia Department of Education puts out regular correspondence from the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the form of “Supt’s Memos.” Districts across Virginia read these each week for directives from the state. For many years they were distributed as Word files so that the agency could adhere to federal Section 504 standards in accessibility.
When I worked in Goochland we’d often talk about how these were in “Word” format and not PDF. Why it mattered is unclear, but of course to read a Word file you have to leave the browser and launch Word. And once I’d joined the agency, I was told “see what you can do about those, I’d love if they were PDFs.”
Making PDF files is easy. Making accessible PDFs is more of a challenge. I then developed a new workflow using leveraging some Google Workspace add-ons. This covered the creation of these memos across different departments, director approvals, and then eventual delivery to the office of the Superintendent. The new system took awhile, and took the collaboration of two of us in the office to create the memos in Word and then export them a specific way to become accessible PDFs. At the same time, we dressed them up graphically.
I was proud of the workflow and the new look. The VDOE finally had PDF!
Here’s a look at one of the memos from a visual perspective. The red and black colors matched the agency’s slogan “Virginia is for Learners” campaign and used the Neue Kabel font, then used by the comms department. The text font was set in Calibri over the former Times New Roman.
The Second Revision
As I transitioned to a different role, and the agency left Google Workspace for Microsoft 365, the workflow system had to be redeveloped in Sharepoint. I came up with the initial new workflow and then it was incorporated into a larger scale project using some outside consultants to develop a more comprehensive Sharepoint solution.
Clearly comfortable in my new role, we hired a new chief of staff and that happened to be my former superintendent in Goochland! He then solicited my help in developing a new format for the Supt’s memos as an email newsletter.
I was happy to help, but also discouraged to work in the Superintendent’s office again as I’d moved into focusing on professional development. I also questioned why we were moving to email, that the real solution would have been to do what should have been done decades ago, and build a database of these memos.
However the new state superintendent, unknown to me at the time, had been directed by a board member to adopt this type of format to aid division superintendents to get the weekly memos.
And so, the new format was born, which started with superintendent Lisa Coons and continues today with Jenna Conway. You can view these email newsletters online.
I developed an in-house SharePoint based review and approval system using PowerAutomate to allow agency employees to submit articles and have them go through a multi-step review process. The SharePoint site includes full style guide and instructional videos.
During the time I produced this newsletter, I changed the header each week after learning that Ms. Coons wasn’t fond of her picture at the top. I had a lot of fun creating a number of seasonal headers. The agency uses GovDelivery as its email platform and the headers were created in Illustrator. The serif font used was Lora, which was the font adopted by our communications department. Before my departure, I transferred the duty of the newsletter to the comms department.