Nick Squared

Director of Communications Nick Saracino often found himself under the scrutiny of Principal Dan Frank, who feared that the messiness of the Communications Office — which used to lie in the administrative hallway, directly adjacent to the nurse’s office — could deter potential parents walking through.  Ironically, much of the clutter consisted of cardboard box upon cardboard box of material meant to boost Parker’s image — directories, Blue Calendars, and Live Creatures shared space with Parker-themed brochures, banners, envelopes, tablecloths, and apparel.

But some of the debris has no apparent purpose.  A trophy with a kettle where a football would normally be with “The end and aim of Fantasy Football is the development of characters and blind luck” inscribed on the plaque beneath sits on top of a filing cabinet.  The back half of a giant horse-shaped piece of plywood used for an old Mike and Duane Show sticks out from behind a shelf.  The clutter also includes a bright red toy phone and a poster declaring “Free Ja Rule” in reference to an imprisoned ‘90s rapper.

Along with the more functional boxes, these items have escaped Frank’s scrutiny and now the Communications Office has moved to the building across the street.  This is an upside, Saracino said,  to a change he doesn’t look forward to.  He doesn’t want to be away from the action — it’s his job to tell people about what’s going on in the main school building, not the business office, after all.

   On top of one box sits “Bar Mitzvah Disco,” a parodic coffee-table-book filled with big, glossy pictures of bar mitzvahs from the ‘70s accompanied by almost anthropological descriptions.  Saracino says parents sometimes stopped by and pointed out former Parker students in it.

Most of the photos in “Bar Mitzvah Disco” predate the Communications Office, which didn’t exist until 14 years ago.  Parker acquired it almost by accident, when in 2001 Saracino decided that, after doing several years of pro bono work for Parker on behalf of IQ Creative Communications Group, the communications agency he worked at, he wanted to work here full-time.  He made his pitch to then-principal Don Monroe, pointing out that Latin had four full-time communications employees and that Lab could call upon University of Chicago’s eight.

“He told me that while he didn’t disagree, he just didn’t see me lasting a year,” Saracino said.  “He knew the constituency very well, and he basically said, ‘You won’t last a year here.’  And I said, ‘Just give me a try.  I’d like to try.’  And he said, ‘Okay.’”

Before the Communications Office existed, different departments juggled communications duties, with the Development and Alumni Office taking on the largest share, according to Jill Chukerman ’77, who has copy-edited many Parker communications materials as an outside consultant since 1994.  

The multi-department system was challenging, according to Chukerman.  “Someone’s producing something over here,” Chukerman said, “and someone’s producing something over there, and those things, if you looked at them, might not even look like they came from the same institution.”

The Parker brand has come a long way since then, as over the past couple decades the school has come to appreciate the importance of image, according to Frank.  Parker’s decision to acquire a Communications Office represented an early step in the shift toward better branding.

The most recent step in that shift is the Board’s newly-released “Strategic Plan.” Its nine goals include “Better Define Our Unique Brand and Communicate Our Identity,” which is a subgoal of “Enhance our marketing plan to further enhance our reputation by articulating value, focus, and benefits of a Parker education in the Chicago marketplace.”

“We can have the best educational program, the widest and most authentic sense of inclusivity and access to a Parker education going on, but if we don’t get better at telling our story, of all that happens here at Parker, we may not be able to allow people who are either at Parker or not yet at Parker to know enough about this wonderful place,” said Frank.  “And with a market that now includes an increasing number of schools that are available in the city of Chicago–which is a good thing–it’s important that we tell our story in our own words, rather than let somebody else tell their version of who we are.”

That means more work for Saracino.  Hopefully the eight shots of espresso he drinks each morning (in addition to the cup of coffee he drinks at work), according to Assistant Director of Communications Nick Robinson, will help him keep up.  

Robinson joined four years ago to help with social media and free up Saracino so he could do more long-term planning. “When I first started working here, it was a while before I got it,” Robinson said, “and finally one day we were sitting down. ‘Start from the moment you wake up. How much caffeine do you take?’–and it is an ungodly amount of caffeine.”

The caffeine has pretty much the effect one would expect.  Saracino is always in motion.  During one two-minute phone call, started from feet-flat-on-the-floor sitting position, he kicks his feet up onto desk, puts them back down, rolls over to his computer, clicks around, moves into a crosslegged position (still on the chair), and goes back to a normal seating position.  Sometimes Saracino even escapes the chair entirely–if he gets excited enough when he talks, he literally leaves the ground for a second or two.

Saracino needs all that energy.  He and Robinson have to send out school-wide emails (as well as snail-mail), run Parker’s official facebook and twitter accounts, and write everything on the Parker website (that doesn’t have a byline)–in addition to designing all the items they receive in those boxes.

At least they don’t have to wear suits–Robinson is in slip-on sneakers, and Saracino rocks a T-shirt that says “#2 Dad.”

Despite his many duties, Robinson, whom Saracino calls “little Nick,” says he likes his job.  He enjoys the “variety of the day.”  “I remember my first week, I sat and listened to a presentation on the fall of Yugoslavia at a MX,” Robinson said, “and I’m like, ‘Well this is boring,’ but the very next thing I did was take photos of the kindergarteners releasing butterflies.”

The two members of the Communications Office remain enthusiastic–and ambitious. Robinson wants to do more “authentic content creation”–i.e. having community members sell the the school directly.  In future content, he’d like to see teachers explaining what they do in the classroom, students discussing what they like about Parker, and more student work in general.  

The administration would also like to see more such marketing, according to Frank.  

Making more might require a bigger office, of course.  “We’ll have to see,” Frank said, “but, clearly, if a goal of the school is to improve its ability to communicate, we will have to assess whether we have the right size office.”

The two current employees of the Communications Office see plenty of possibility for additional content.

“I just see all these cool things that are happening,” Robinson said, “and I’m like, ‘Oh that would have been so cool’–and this is just a selfish thing–I’m like, ‘That would have gotten so many likes on facebook!’”