Bishop O'Dowd - Publications, E-Mail and Website Policy

Publications, E-Mail and Website Policy

In order to best serve the Bishop O’Dowd High School community, a policy has been created to set out the procedures for external communications.

A. General

The Office of Communications assists the school in articulating its mission and priorities, and informs the public of the achievements and academic accomplishments of Bishop O’Dowd students, faculty and staff, as well as academic and co-curricular programs and schoolwide events.

Through a comprehensive program that includes media relations, print publications, electronic communications and the school website, a variety of audiences are reached on an ongoing basis.

The Office of Communications produces The Dragon alumni magazine, the weekly e-newsletter and maintains an extensive school website.

B. Media Relations

One of the primary tasks of the Office of Communications is to coordinate a sustained effort to enhance the public’s positive awareness of Bishop O’Dowd High School. Through media relations, the Office of Communications achieves this by facilitating media interest in newsworthy activities and events, student honors and faculty achievements, and school initiatives.

The effectiveness of this program is monitored in part through Allen’s Press Clipping Bureau, which tracks stories published in local printed publications.

C. Campus Publications

The Dragon Alumni Magazine

The Dragon alumni magazine is published three times a year (in February, June and October) by the Office of Communications for alumni, current and past parents, and donors. The magazine features information about alumni, students, faculty and staff, and school programs and events. Past issues of the magazine are archived on the website.

Weekly E-Newsletter

The weekly e-newsletter is distributed to parents, alumni, faculty and staff and other interested community members every Wednesday. The newsletter features stories and announcements about O’Dowd activities, programs and events, alumni, students, faculty and staff.

The Bishop O’Dowd High School Website

The website features a comprehensive look at Bishop O’Dowd High School – including information about the school’s history, admissions requirements, faculty and staff, academics, campus ministry program, athletics, counseling, technology, calendars, parent association and more.

Deadlines and Policies

The Dragon Alumni Magazine

Deadlines for The Dragon alumni magazine are set on an annual basis by the director of communications and communicated to faculty and staff in a publication deadline schedule. Contributions for this publication can be submitted to the director of communications, who reserves the right to edit both content and length of contributions.

The Weekly E-Newsletter

The e-newsletter is published every Tuesday afternoon for distribution on Wednesday morning at 6 a.m. during the school year. Announcements and articles for the e-newsletter must be submitted electronically to lmahoney@bishopodowd.org by noon of the Monday preceding the Wednesday e-newsletter. In the event of a Monday holiday, the deadline is noon of the Friday preceding the Wednesday e-newsletter. The director of communications reserves the right to edit both content and length of contributions.

E-Mail Communication

Parent volunteer groups are to take advantage of the grade level e-mail system and/or the phone tree and school officials are to take advantage of the voice mail notification system for special messages. Requests to the Communications Office for special e-mail blasts are not generally permitted. Under extraordinary circumstances, requests for special e-mail blasts must be made 48 hours in advance to be reviewed by the director of communications and vice president for advancement. If the request is approved, the content must be discussed with the director of communications and a deadline for submittal of content can be set at that time.

Website

Basic announcements and stories for the website must be submitted 48 hours before the desired posting time, and follow the guidelines set forth in the web style guide. More involved requests must be discussed with the webmaster and a deadline for submittal of content can be set at that time. Please contact the webmaster drittenbach@bishopodowd.org with requests.

Web Style Guide

Font: text (normal); headlines (normal bold)
Justification: Left
Indentation of Paragraphs: No
Leave 1 line between paragraphs
Internal Headings: caps and lower case (Heading 4)
No colors in text
No underlines in text (mistaken for links)
Photos on the home page are always top and center with a return before text
Photo dimensions on the home page must be 150 pixels wide by 80 pixels high

** Announcements and articles for the website and printed publications must be edited, spell checked and reviewed by the department chairperson prior to submission.

Style Guidelines

ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviate months when used with dates: Jan. 3, Aug. 4, etc.
Don’t ever abbreviate March, April, May, June, July
Capitalize and don’t abbreviate days of the week.
Use the abbreviations Ave., Blvd., and St. only with a numbered address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Spell out and capitalize when part of a formal street name without a number: Pennyslvania Avenue. Lowercase and spell out when used alone or with more than one street name: Massachussetts and Pennsylvania avenues.
Spell out the names of the 50 states and the District of Columbia when they stand alone. Abbreviate the states as follows: Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Hawaii, Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kan., Ky., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., Neb., Nev., N.H., N.J., N.M., N.Y., N.C., N.D., Ohio, Okla., Ore., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.D., Tenn., Texas, Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va (no space between the W. and Va.), Wis., and Wyo.
In general, use an acronym in subsequent references after the initial reference has been formally written out: National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA). Certain organizations and governmental agencies are widely recognized by their initials and do not require formal introduction on first reference (like CIA or FBI).

DEGREES

Use lower case if generic: bachelor's degree, master's degree, doctor's degree or doctorate.
Use upper case if specific: Master of Arts in education.
Use periods if abbreviated: B.S., M.A., Ed.D., Ph.D. When mention of degrees is necessary to establish someone’s credentials, avoid an abbreviation and use instead a phrase such as: John Jones earned a doctorate in psychology at Stanford.
When used after a name in a sentence, an academic abbreviation is set off by commas: Stephen Phelps, Ed.D., spoke at the Open House.

NAMES

Alumni names: include class year, e.g., Gio Welch '86. Make sure the apostrophe is tipped correctly; MS Word does this automatically as long as you hit the space bar after typing the number.
For alumni in religious orders, the class year follows the initials of the order, e.g., Brother Daniel Michael Thomas, O.P. ’59

First references should always be to Bishop O’Dowd High School. On subsequent references use the following in this order of preference: O’Dowd, BOD.

NUMBERS

Spell out one through nine and use figures for 10 and above
Ages are always figures: 3 years old, 12 years old. Ages are not hyphenated unless they serve as compound modifiers: a 3-year-old child.
Use commas in numbers, e.g., 1,230 and $8,000
Use numbers for grade levels, e.g., 10th and 11th graders
Use commas to set off the date when the day of the month is included:
September 21, 2002, was a busy day.
September 2002 was a busy month. (no commas)
Avoid ordinal numbers for dates.
September 21, 2002 NOT September 21st, 2002
Telephone numbers: (510) 577-9100, ext. 302
Time: 11 a.m. or 3:30 p.m. (lower case, with periods). Avoid the redundant 10 a.m. this morning.
Spell out percent: The teacher said 60 percent was a failing grade.
Decades: It’s the 1970s or the ’70s NOT 1970’s or 70’s.
Dimensions are always figures: 3 feet, 6 acres. Heights are always figures. Do not hyphenate unless it’s a compound modifier: a 5-foot-tall gorilla.

PUNCTUATION

Periods: Use one space after a period between sentences.
Dashes: Use one long, not two short.
Quotation marks: In general, put outside the punctuation, e.g., “I like going to Bishop O’Dowd High School," he said. Quotes within quotes: alternate between double quotation marks (“or”) and single marks (‘or’). Use three marks together if two quoted elements end at the same time. The period and comma always go within the quotation marks. The dash, the semicolon, the question mark and the exclamation point go within the quotation marks when they apply to the quoted matter only. They go outside when they apply to the whole sentence.
Commas: Use commas to separate elements in a series, but do not put a comma before the conjunction in a simple series: The flag is red, white and blue. He would nominate Tom, Dick or Harry. Use a comma before the concluding conjunction in a complex series of phrases: The main points to consider are whether the athletes are skillful enough to compete, whether they have the stamina to endure the training, and whether they have the proper mental attitude.
Exclamation points: use sparingly and never more than one.
Capitalization: avoid unnecessary capitals.
Lowercase spring, summer, fall winter and derivatives such as springtime unless part of a formal name like Summer Olympics.
Use the ampersand when it is part of a company’s formal name (AT&T). The ampersand should not otherwise be used in place of and.
Apposition: a decision on whether to put commas around a word, phrase or clause used in apposition depends on whether it is essential to the meaning of the sentence (no commas) or not essential (use commas).

TITLES

If a title appears as part of a person's name, it is capitalized: Principal Joe Salamack, Director of Alumni Relations Kathy Hodson. Otherwise it is not capitalized: The principal will attend the game. Kathy Hodson is the director of alumni relations.

Do not capitalize academic disciplines unless they refer to a language, ethnic group, or geographical entity: Jane doesn’t like her computer science class, but she loves her courses in English, French and African-American studies.

DICTIONARY

ACT (no periods)
AP (no periods)
CD-ROM
cocurricular (no hyphen)
coeducational (no hyphen)
e-mail
ESLRs
extracurricular (no hyphen)
Friends of the Dragon
Fundraising/fundraiser
GPA (no periods)
he/she (not he or she)
his/her (not his or her)
in-service (hyphen)
Internet
Mass or Masses (capital M)
One Community, Many Parts
online (no hyphen)
over – usually refers to special relationships: The plane flew over the city. Use more than with numerals: There were more than 200 alumni at the event.
Parent Association
president/principal model
SAT (no periods)
schoolwide
WASC
water polo (two words)
website (not web site)