Public Education: Be Creative on a Budget

Many public educators have had to deal with budget cuts or constraints to their public education program recently, but that doesn’t mean public education efforts have to suffer. It just means public educators must work harder to be creative and focus on avenues that are cost-effective, reach the most amounts of people and create a positive impact on the community.

Even Cell Phone Sally has had to come up with her own ways to provide public education services to public educators and the public alike. Hopefully, by sharing some of our cost-saving measure ideas, it can give you thoughts or inspiration for how to maximize your very own public education program.

Activity Sheets

Through the www.csec.texas.gov website, Cell Phone Sally provides free activity sheets that anyone can use for their public education program. Not only is there 10 different activity sheets in English, but there are also 3 activity sheets in Spanish. Many of these activity sheets come from the Cell Phone Sally classroom kit. Why not download some of these today and use them for your classroom visits or conference booths. Kids love to color and learn at the same time so this is a great resource. Click here to find a list of all the available activity sheets: http://bit.ly/CPSactivitysheets.

PSAs

Public Service Announcements don’t have to cost a lot of money nor do they have to be created on a fancy video camera anymore. If you have an iPhone or Android phone, you could easily record a PSA on your phone and download it online and share with your community. CSEC recently partnered with the Student Television Network and had middle school and high school students create PSAs on 9-1-1 topics. Six of those PSAs have been posted on the Cell Phone Sally YouTube site. Feel free to share or just view for inspiration! More PSAs will be posted throughout the year, so come back regularly to check them out. Here is a link to the most recently posted PSAs: http://bit.ly/911PSASeries3

Cell Phone Sally Videos and Songs

Why not utilize videos and songs created by Cell Phone Sally for your public education program? CSEC recently made the CPS video 9-1-1: Getting Help is Easy available for free online in both Spanish and English. The Cell Phone Sally songs are also available in both English and Spanish. Check them out here: http://bit.ly/CPSVideo-Song.  Also, if you go to the CPS YouTube site, you can also find the videos there and embed them onto your own site. (https://www.youtube.com/user/CellPhoneSally911)

Social Media

Social media is the quickest and easiest way to get your public education message out to the public. Whether you choose to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, a blog site or Google+, there are multiple avenues for getting your message out and making a difference in 9-1-1 public education. Need some inspiration or ideas on what you can do with your social media sites? Check out links to Cell Phone Sally’s social media sites as well as the National Public Educator Forum social media sites.

Cell Phone Sally Social Media Site Links Found Here: http://bit.ly/CPSSocialMedia

NPEF Social Media Sites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/911NPEF

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/911NPEF

These are just a few ideas to get you started. Public education is a vital part of making sure our society runs successfully. Why don’t you start making a difference today? For more information or any questions on 9-1-1 public education, please contact melinda.crockom@csec.texas.gov.