CHALLENGE
Graduation season is a critical awareness and enrollment window for Stride K12’s Texas virtual schools, yet coverage of virtual education has been fragmented and inconsistent, often limited to individual student features or localized stories. Across Texas Virtual Academy at Hallsville, Digital Academy of Texas, and Texas Online Preparatory School, Stride K12 needed to elevate graduation into a statewide media moment, demonstrate the scale and legitimacy of virtual education, and increase positive visibility across multiple regions simultaneously, all while competing with traditional school graduation coverage during a seasonal media lull.
OBJECTIVE
Pierpont set out to reposition graduation from a single event into a coordinated, statewide storytelling platform. The goals: elevate graduation into a statewide media moment across all three Texas schools; demonstrate the scale and legitimacy of virtual education through data-led narratives; increase positive visibility across multiple regions simultaneously; and support broader narratives around school choice and student success. Success would be measured in earned media volume and reach across print, online, and broadcast.
SOLUTION
Pierpont repositioned graduation from a single event into a multi-layered storytelling platform built on three coordinated pillars. First, a statewide moment anchored by a data-led narrative, total graduate volume, college acceptances and scholarships, and cross-school participation, extending coverage beyond individual schools into a broader Texas education conversation.
Second, a distributed local storytelling engine: a market-by-market outreach strategy built around individual senior spotlights in hometown outlets, day-in-the-life student journey features, and SkillsUSA, robotics, and community-impact stories, scaling one moment into multiple localized pitching opportunities. Third, an integrated broadcast and feature push that targeted major broadcast outlets, framed graduation events as visually compelling stories, and coordinated media alerts and follow-ups to maximize reach.
Pierpont executed the campaign across all three schools, TVAH, TOPS, and DATX, aligning messaging around graduation scale, success stories and non-traditional learning pathways. The team conducted sustained outreach to local, regional and statewide outlets, pitched individual student profiles in hometown markets, secured and supported broadcast opportunities, and continued sourcing students, teachers, and counselors to sustain momentum beyond graduation day.
RESULTS
Pierpont transformed graduation into a high-impact, statewide media moment. The campaign drove 17 media hits tied to TVAH graduation coverage alone, with placements on major outlets including NBC 5 (KXAS) and NBC News Dallas.
Sustained follow-up coverage from individual senior spotlight outreach carried momentum across multiple markets, while student achievement, competition, and community stories kept Stride K12 in the conversation beyond graduation day. In total, graduation coverage contributed to 43 Texas media hits during the Q4 reporting period.
Beyond the numbers, the campaign elevated virtual school graduation into a credible, large-scale statewide event, reinforced the narrative that virtual schools deliver real, measurable student outcomes, and built a PR model Stride K12 can replicate annually, supporting broader positioning around school choice, flexibility, and student success.
