What if you had a chance to make a new first impression? Branding can do that!

It’s no secret across the nation that middle schools are struggling to maintain their enrollment numbers. The reasons are complex, but we have been working behind the scenes with Escambia County Public Schools to write a new narrative about our local middle schools - starting with our rising star, Workman Middle School.

Workman has a reputation that does not match the real experience: their students are excelling, the school runs with precision and teachers are staying because they can make a real difference in the lives of their students. We even have Pensacola’s Police Chief praising the school’s safe environment. It’s easy to see when you walk the halls and yet, persistent community beliefs hold the school back from reaching its full potential.

As a longtime strategic partner of Escambia County Public Schools, idgroup was engaged to design a pilot program that would help increase middle school enrollment, enhance Workman Middle School’s reputation and extend to other middle schools in the county upon completion. Our team identified three areas of opportunity for the program, in addition to communications support:
 

• Share the real success story from the perspective of the school’s high performing leadership team, students, teachers, parents and community alumni through targeted communications.
• Increase community ownership of the school by engaging local businesses and organizations in campus beautification projects.
• Reach elementary school families who are considering their options for middle school with direct outreach from student ambassadors who promote the school’s success.

Using our stakeholder engagement process, we tapped into the opportunities Workman Middle School could leverage to improve community perceptions. Here’s what we learned:

In a more interconnected world, children have nearly unlimited options to learn and pursue their interests, giving middle schools an opportunity to focus on character building, critical thinking, citizenship, support systems and workforce development.

To prove negative assumptions about Workman’s reputation wrong, we needed to show Workman students and alumni succeeding and safely exploring their identities in and out of the classroom with support from caring adults who see their potential. 

Workman demonstrating how their students thrive through a time of transition will help parents feel confident that they are setting their child up for success, thus helping to increase enrollment at Workman Middle School.

Branding that truly resonates and drives growth captures the shared story between an organization and its stakeholders. It happens when people dream together, focusing on strengths over weaknesses, shared purpose over competing interests, and actions that make life—and the organization—better. We witnessed this firsthand during the stakeholder dialogue we hosted on the community’s perception of Workman Middle School. 

While discussing high-point experiences, a participant revealed she was an alumna and, without hesitation, burst into the Workman Chant: “We are the Jaguars, couldn’t be prouder…” Another alumnus across the room joined in, chanting loudly, “If you can’t hear us, we’ll shout a little louder.” The energy sparked by these two voices electrified the room, creating an unforgettable moment that captured the school’s enduring impact. 

It left everyone, including our idgroup team, inspired by the potential of untapped advocates and their pride in the school. High-impact branding thrives in moments like this, where authenticity and co-created meaning come to life. It brought the school’s positioning into clear focus.

The numbers don’t lie. Workman Middle School is improving academic performance and student behavior across the board—yet most people in the community don’t know that. 

Communications were designed to position Workman Middle School as a school on the rise, uplifting students academically and personally to become engaged citizens who are loud and proud about their Jaguar experience.

As communications themes, “We Are Workman” and “Workman Rising” were explored through interview-driven content to capture the school’s transformation story. “Stand Up. Stand Out. Stand Together.” was also embedded with the school’s emblem to make a strong statement about “who we are” as the Workman community. We used this messaging to create a beginning of the year hype video that was shown to teachers and students during their return to school. The video was paired with energizing speeches from the principal and community alumni.

To celebrate and highlight the achievements within the Workman community and amplify pride in the school, we collected and shared impactful success stories from students, teachers, and alumni. These stories featured alumni who were active in the community or excelling in high school, as well as current students who demonstrated outstanding performance. Through recorded interviews, these stories are being distributed widely via social media, internal and external school communications, district channels, and the Ambassadors program. By showcasing these success stories, we aimed to raise awareness of the school’s culture of excellence.

Every year, the School Choice Expo gives our schools a chance to reintroduce themselves to parents and students considering their options for middle and high school. So Workman needed to be LOUD and PROUD about their successes—that’s where our team helped amplify their presence and message. We designed a large display banner that made “We Are Workman” legible from across the room. The other middle schools presented their information on science-fair sized displays so Workman’s huge banner stood high above the competition.

At the table, we produced a pamphlet that detailed the school’s transformation and provided overviews of their attractive workforce education programs. We also provided a QR code to drive traffic to the school’s updated homepage and YouTube channel, where the “We Are Workman” video series could be viewed as a collection of diverse perspectives. We worked closely with the school’s IT staff and IT department at ECPS to design within the limitations of the website template.

While this pilot program is still in its early launch phase, the “Stand Up. Stand Out. Stand Together” message is truly a mark of this moment—where Workman turns a page in the eyes of the community and emerges as a top performing middle school. As their principal, Derrick Thomas says, “There’s nothing standing in our way.” 

Stay tuned for more updates on this incredible transformation.