Rutherford County Schools unveils new branding, marketing initiative

RUTHERFORD COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) – A month before the start of the school year, Rutherford County Schools is showing off its new look.

On Tuesday, RCS unveiled its new branding and marketing initiative.

“Branding is much more than a new logo. It is a vital, strategic initiative that helps define an organization, its messaging, and its image,” Director of Schools Dr. Jimmy Sullivan wrote in a statement.

The new marketing plan cost the district $85,000 and was met with some pushback from community members who felt it wasn’t a good use of funds.

However, RCS Communications Chief James Evans said there were limitations on uses for the federal funding from COVID relief initiatives.

“It was in one of those situations where we had to either use it or lose it,” Evans said. “And so we thought this would be a good investment because it wasn’t being used for classroom programs… we already had a lot of those programs in place for those through this funding…we had exhausted a lot of those opportunities.”

Evans also said that in this day and age, it is important for a school district to have strong branding.

“It’s just the reality of public education these days, that we have to market ourselves just like a business would,” he said. “We know that charter schools and vouchers and those kinds of things, private schools, homeschooling, all the different options that parents have, those options are not going to go away.”

In fact, Evans hopes this new branding and the marketing strategy that comes with it highlight all the options RCS can offer students and families.

He said one of his goals for the upcoming school year is for people to know what career and college readiness opportunities exist within RCS.

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“People usually know what their schools are good at…they didn’t know as much about what else is offered, and so if they had a high school a town over, they maybe didn’t know that they have a culinary arts program or construction program, or a dental program that their kids could study,” he said.

The branding video can be found here while more information is available here .

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