The Peoria Unified School District recently received a Copper Medallion Award from the Arizona School Public Relations Association (ASPRA) and was honored at the annual ASPRA*tion Awards and Superintendents’ Luncheon on February 1. Each year, ASPRA celebrates standards of excellence in school public relations and celebrates the people and organizations supporting public relations efforts in Arizona’s schools. 

The Copper Medallion Award is only given to one recipient in Arizona in the category of school districts with more than 10,000 students. Peoria Unified earned a Copper Medallion for their work on a successful Kindergarten Enrollment project titled, “Calling All Kindergarteners.” 

The award submissions for a Copper Medallion are rigorous, and include clear demonstrations of research, planning, implementation and evaluation of a major communications project. 

The district earned six more Awards of Excellence in the following categories:

• • Identity/Image Package for their submission on Communications Camp for School Administrators 
  • Photography for Honoring Our Heroes, Our Youngest Learners and Prize Patrol
  • Podcast/Audio for their submission called Leaders in Education and
  • Writing for their submission on Providing Technology to Every Student

Additionally, Christ Church of the Valley (CCV) was honored at this event for their ongoing partnership with Peoria Unified. The district recognizes the need for strong community partnerships. CCV received an award of excellence in the Individual, Business, Foundation or Civic/Community Contributions to Public Education category.  

The ASPRA*tion Awards program recognizes creative and effective work in school communications in a number of categories, demonstrated to judges across the U.S. through writing, photography, video, social media samples, and much more for projects that took place between August 2021 and November 2022. In each award-winning submission, these districts demonstrated to the judges why these projects were needed, what research went into producing them, how these projects were implemented and communicated and how success was measured or evaluated.