Welcome email

[Karin]

Hello Examiners,



Welcome to the Examiner’s Charter Schools Directory Project.

Just hours after Michelle sent out the newsletter, my inbox began filling up with your excited queries. Parenting and education Examiners sure knows how to represent!

This will be a great opportunity for us to connect with other Examiners, both new and seasoned, in team collaboration.



Many of you asked for a quick clarification of the project, so let me give you a brief overview:



Each of you will soon receive a specific geographic area, a general list of charter schools, a template and contact information to that state’s charter school organization (yes, I am a weirdie and keep such trivia nuggets in my crafty resource stashes).

You will be asked to use this information to create a directory listing that area’s charter schools, plus each school’s web site.

The Examiner charter schools project will go live simultaneously (date TBA), and all of it linked to a national directory (on the Charter Schools Examiner’s page).



The listing will not only bring page views for you, but for all of us as a group.

For example: Let’s say I am writing a piece about charter schools from a national perspective, I will then highlight the words “charter schools,” and link them to the national page. Or: If I am writing about St Louis charter schools (for example) I will link that term to the Examiner who listed those programs. I scratch your back, you scratch mine…



This directory should also become highly searchable. If I ever moved to a different state, one of the priorities would be to check out the schools. I’d likely throw a few keywords into a search engine and do my research. We want your articles to be the first yielded by the search engines.

Wanna try it out? Google (recent Examiner project): “education 101 charter schools.” The top searches are for Examiner articles.



So when does all this take place?



We are spending the next week or so sorting through the “charter school territories” and assembling Examiner teams.

At that point you will receive yet another email, complete with a project template, plus instructions and sample wording.



Okay, enough business—now some fun!

I am planning on funneling a lot of details of this project through a forum.

Sure, sure, that’s still business—but the reason is to make sure that there will be more than just a one way conversation. I don’t want to talk at you, but with you. Plus you guys will have gobs of great info you may want to share with others. Also, I want us to get to know eachother better. Before next week’s email, I will post a quick bio in the meet and greet and hope you’ll do the same.

When this project is said and done, we’ll have a fantastic resource directory which will yield tons of search engine page views, plus a roster of new Examiner friends!



Oh, and don't ever shy away from emailing me directly. I've been terribly unlucky the past week with technology. My computer is back from Geek Squad, so cross your fingers that I get to keep it

[Karin]

Hello all!

The response to the Examiner Charter Schools Project is amazing.
Good thing too, because we are about to create a directory with more than 4,600 schools in 40 states (plus the District of Columbia). In other words, it will take a big team to get it done.

Our team is a varying group with both new and veteran Examiners. Our writers range from those very familiar with charter schools to others who wish to learn the basics. We even have a few Examiner for this project who live in the ten states where charter school law is non-existent. This project will be a growing experience for all of us and we can all learn from eachothers' strengths. Listed at the bottom of this message are links to articles that may be helpful when writing about charter schools.

This coming week you can expect a listing with which area charter schools you will be covering, contact information to that state's charter school organizations, a template with instructions.

Before we are ready to provide that, let me explain how you will be ending up with your assigned "chunk" of charter schools.
Some of you may be asked to participate for a different state than the one you usually write for.
So before you write me off as crazy, here's how it works:

When each of you replied you were asked to provide name, examiner title, and area covered.
This information has been entered into a database.
Then we took the 40 states and DC and divided them into "digestible" segments. Some states will need more than one Examiner (like California with more than 650 charter schools). Other states that have just a smidgen of charter schools (like Mississippi and Virginia) have been packaged together for one Examiner to cover.
More details on how that will work will come with your template.

Some states had more Examiners reply than needed for that particular state.
Believe me we will not turn you away!
With so many states and schools to cover, we are thankful for every single one of you.
Since this is a team project, it will be worth it and it will yield page views (think search engine and broader reading audience for your otherwise local pages). If for some reason you feel rather adamant not to cover another state, please let me know. We will do what we can do accommodate requests, but are trying to make sure all states are covered too. There is a method to the madness. (;

Copies of all emails sent will be posted in the forum. So if you need to catch up, the details are repeated there. If there are questions that surface that the group needs to know, I will also post it in the forum.

Have a great weekend and once more--welcome!