Coaching staff: Sylvia Soholt
When district leaders in the West want to get their messages to key audiences, they often call Sylvia Soholt. Her successful track record of enlightening citizens and legislators about schools is evidence of her popularity.
Her clients range from Seattle to San Jose, from San Francisco to New York. They span the scale, from the large (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) to the small (Pasadena USD). She’s been called “a visionary problem-solver” and a “powerful presenter who can distill complex research into layman’s terms.”
She calls herself an “educator about education” who enjoys the one-on-one contact involved in elevating what people understand about schools–especially how to read schools’ vital signs. Among her favorite projects is the design of a board game to help school board members and superintendents learn the economics of their enterprise. She is especially proud of directing a national study exploring what parents want to know about schools.
Sylvia believes that her clients are more likely to remember what she teaches them if they enjoy the process. This ambition leads to praise like this from Alice Villadsen, President Emeritus, Brookhaven College, Dallas, Texas: “I know whenever she»s working on a project it is going to be perfect. She creates possibility. I can’t imagine anyone being more supportive to our work nor sensitive to the issues.”
Her 17 years as a school communications director brought her to KSA-Plus Communications, a national leader in school communications. She has been with KSA-Plus for a decade. What prepared her for this specialized career was a unique cocktail of a prior career in journalism and public relations, followed by classroom teaching. Her accomplishments include an EdPress Award for writing and design, seven awards from the National School Public Relations Association, and the Liberty and Learning Award from the Washington School Public Relations Association.
Professional Biography
Sylvia Soholt is an expert in strategic school communications and marketing. For the last ten years, she has been a senior consultant at KSA-Plus, the leading school communications firm in the country. Sylvia’s consulting clients include districts, state departments of education, and educational foundations. But for all of her clients, she aims for the same high mark: to enable them to communicate more effectively with their public.
WORK PROJECTS. She has conducted communication audits for more than 15 school districts including San Jose, Pasadena, and San Francisco. She has designed and directed research projects for Education Week, the National School Boards Association, and others. She has also been responsible for strategic communication planning; message development; research, writing, editing, and project management for electronic, Web, and print materials; and presentation development and training for clients, educators, education associations, and parents.
CLIENTS. Her non-district clients include the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession; New York City Department of Education; Policy Division, SRI; Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Washington; Washington State PTA; Center for Educational Leadership; University of Washington Center for Teaching Policy; Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Research and Evaluation; and Achieving the Dream/Community Colleges Count.
LESS RECENT EDUCATION PROJECTS. For 17 years, she was the communications director for Renton Technical College, Lake Washington School District, and Edmonds School District, where she was responsible for managing community relations, marketing, research, and public information for a school district of 22,000 students. This program received national attention for excellence in public engagement.
WORK EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO EDUCATION CAREER. In Tokyo she was a foreign correspondent for Gemini News Service, an editor for Charles Tuttle Publishers, and an instructor at the Aoyama Gakuin University. She was a newspaper reporter and bureau chief in Charleston, South Carolina.
PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS. She is the author of “Bringing Order out of Chaos: The Role of School Public Relations” published in the Journal of School Public Relations in 2003; “Public Engagement: Lessons from the Front” published in Educational Leadership in October 1998; and “A Standard Happy Answer” published in Basic Education, Council of Basic Education in 1997. She is also the contributor or co-author of several other publications.
She has presented at over 150 conference, association, and school district presentations and workshops, including the National Council of Staff Development, National School Public Relations Association, American Evaluation and Research Association, Idaho School Administrators’ Association, National Center for Education and the Economy Leadership Institutes, Panasonic Leadership Institutes, and Washington Association of School Administrators.
AWARDS. In 2001 Sylvia received the EdPress Award for writing and design. She has also received seven awards from the National School Public Relations Association for her publications work for school districts. In 1989 she received the Liberty and Learning Award from the Washington School Public Relations Association.
EDUCATION. Sylvia has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wake Forest University and a master of business administration degree in marketing from City University in Seattle.
COMMUNITY SERVICE AND PERSONAL NOTES. Soholt lives on Vashon Island, Washington and is the single mother of two adult children. She is a board member of the Vashon Allied Arts, as well as a member or volunteer of the Vashon Forest Stewards, the Vashon Land Trust, and the Seattle Opera.
