Awards Award Winners 35 Under 35 Honorees Molly McGowan Gorsuch, APR

The most rewarding part of working in school PR was knowing when my work had positively impacted someone in my district family. It was hearing positive feedback (and a few friendly jabs about pronunciation) from Spanish-speaking families about how phone calls from the superintendent were now recorded in their home language. It was seeing families turn to and trust our district communications in times of fear and uncertainty and then becoming word-of-mouth ambassadors for the district because they felt empowered with info they trusted (even when it wasn’t necessarily something they wanted to hear). It was parents’ Facebook comments parents thanking the district for keeping them up-to-date during a bomb threat, bus wreck or other crisis. It was texts and thank-you cards from bus drivers, school psychologists, cafeteria staff or school nurses sharing how a particular staff appreciation campaign had made them feel seen. It was knowing that the work behind the scenes made a difference.

As with any public relations practitioner responsible for issues management and crisis response, those in school PR are essentially always on call. Add to these time demands a perpetual sense of urgency and the emotional impact of being a school district's shock absorber, and burnout becomes a very real problem. While time stops for no crisis, I realized I could – and should – set healthier boundaries in my non-emergency communications and work. In the process I realized I had set certain unreasonable expectations for myself that were not even expected by my leadership, which ultimately gave me the space I needed to make healthy changes to how I approached prioritizing projects, requests and my overall capacity. It opened the door for open and honest conversations with my superintendent and my colleagues, and taught me an approach to work-life balance that I strive to maintain to this day.

Within the schools, my most fulfilling experience was working alongside my district leadership team to execute the #SleevesUpForSchools campaign, providing the internal and external communication and PR strategy needed to get more than 70% of our employees vaccinated against COVID-19 in a 2-day staff clinic, as soon as they were eligible. But perhaps the most fulfilling professional experience has been the pursuit and attainment of my APR. Being pinned and celebrated in a room full of my peers who truly understood the depth of the process and who had been part of my 8-year journey in school PR was one of the happiest, most emotional moments of my career. And I consider the year-long journey of actually pursuing my APR just as fulfilling as “the big day” since it was during this time that I began to truly unpack the difference between being a tactician and a strategist – and more importantly, I began to trust and believe in my own expertise enough to treat myself as the latter.