This article is part of the series “What Matters Most: Practical Comms for School Business Leaders,” designed to equip schools and districts with practical tools to strengthen messaging, improve transparency, and build trust.

Serving nearly six million students means building communication systems that work across languages, abilities, geographies and channels—and still reach each family as an individual.

Across California, school business leaders understand that serving public education means serving one of the most diverse populations in the nation. Diversity is reflected not only in race, ethnicity and language, but also in geography, income, family structure, access to technology and the ways communities prefer to receive information.

For school business officials, that diversity creates both an opportunity and an obligation: communicate accurate information clearly and consistently to millions of Californians while ensuring that every individual family can find, understand and act on the information that matters to them.

California by the Numbers

According to the California Department of Education, California public schools enrolled approximately 5.73 million TK–12 students in 2025–26 across more than 1,000 school districts. Hispanic or Latino students represent 56% of enrollment, followed by White students at 19.7%, Asian students at 10.3%, students identifying as two or more races at 4.9%, and African American students at 4.8%.

Language adds another important dimension. In 2024–25, California schools served more than 1 million English learners. The California Department of Education reported that Spanish was by far the most common language among English learners, but California students also spoke Mandarin, Vietnamese, Russian, Farsi, Arabic, Cantonese, Punjabi, Pashto, Armenian, Mixteco, Hmong and many other languages.

At the same time, California’s educational landscape spans enormous geographic differences. A large metropolitan district may communicate with hundreds of thousands of students and families across many neighborhoods and languages. A small rural district may serve a fraction of that enrollment while confronting entirely different challenges: greater travel distances, limited broadband access, fewer staff members and communication channels that rely heavily on personal relationships.

National Center for Education Statistics data underscores the breadth of the rural education landscape. NCES classifies schools and districts across 12 locale categories, from large cities and suburbs to fringe, distant and remote rural communities.

TREND TO WATCH  •  Per the California Department of Education, California public school enrollment declined approximately 1.3% in 2025–26, while transitional kindergarten enrollment increased 20.1% and the number of students with disabilities rose 2.9% to more than 850,000. Roughly 60% of students are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

For communicators, the message behind these numbers is clear: our audiences are not static, and our communication strategies cannot be static either.

From Millions Down to One

School business communications can involve topics with immediate consequences for families: budgets, transportation, nutrition services, enrollment, facilities, payroll, purchasing, attendance boundaries and emergency operations.

A district may distribute information to 50,000 people, but communication succeeds or fails with one person at a time. Can a parent understand the transportation change? Can an employee locate the correct payroll information? Can a family whose primary language is not English understand what action is required? Can a person with a disability access the message?

That “millions down to one” mindset is an important standard for school business leaders. Accuracy and consistency matter, but so do accessibility, timing and trust.

Audit the Communication System

At least annually, districts should audit how information travels from the organization to its audiences. Map every major communication path: district and school websites, email, text messaging, automated calls, mobile apps, social media, printed materials, board communications and in-person outreach.

Then ask practical questions. Who owns each channel? Is information current? Is the same message consistent across platforms? Which languages are needed? Are materials accessible to people using assistive technology? Can families easily determine what they need to do next? And critically, are there communities the district routinely fails to reach?

Analytics can reveal email opens, website traffic and engagement, but quantitative data should be paired with feedback from families, students and employees.

Build a Multichannel, Multilingual Strategy

For urgent or action-oriented messages, text, email and automated notifications may work together. Complex financial or policy information may require a webpage or FAQ that serves as the authoritative source, supported by shorter messages directing audiences there. Printed materials, community meetings and trusted school-site staff remain essential where digital access or digital literacy creates barriers.

Multilingual outreach should also begin before publication rather than being treated as a final translation step. Districts should identify the languages used by their communities, prioritize professional or appropriately reviewed translations for high-impact communications, use plain language in the original English version, and make it easy for families to request interpretation or additional assistance.

Accessibility deserves the same attention. Use descriptive headings, readable formatting, meaningful link text, captions and transcripts for video, alternative text for meaningful images and documents designed for screen readers. Avoid placing essential information exclusively inside graphics or inaccessible PDFs.

Ultimately, strong school business communication is an extension of good stewardship. We carefully manage public dollars, facilities, technology and operations because students and communities depend on them. Information deserves the same discipline.

California’s scale makes communication complicated. Its diversity makes communication richer. The goal is not simply to send more messages. It is to build systems in which accurate information reaches the right people, through the right channels, in a form they can understand and use.

Because serving nearly six million students ultimately comes down to serving each one—and the family and community surrounding them.

About the Author

Jennifer Bulotti, MPA, is founder of Sandalwood Design + Communications and has spent more than 30 years helping school districts, public agencies, nonprofits, and private organizations communicate with purpose through strategic communications, community engagement, media relations, branding, and crisis communications.