Erin Meyer is dedicated to serving her community. She attended Purdue University Northwest and got a degree in English with a professional writing emphasis. After she graduated, she began to work in the world of corporate marketing, but she spent her free time serving the children of her community.
“I always wanted to be a teacher. I even taught music classes to little kids at a music studio in my free time after work. Being a leader and educator has always been in the background. It was always really fulfilling,” Meyer said. “It never occurred to me to marry the two things and step out of the corporate world and into education in this role. Education has always been an interest.”
Meyer was able to combine her passions into one career path. She is currently working as the Director of Communications for the La Porte School System.
“I started my first marketing job about 15 years ago, and I've been in a few different industries under the umbrella of marketing,” Meyer said. “The opportunity to use what I learned over the years in a new industry in education presented itself and I’m really grateful to have been able to transition my career towards serving a community as a communications person.”
This opportunity was presented to Meyer in December of 2020, and she has been working in this position ever since. Her job allows her to serve the community by finding out what each student, parent, family, and staff member's needs are, and how she can use communication to satisfy those needs.
“I help out with the different strategies that the corporation would like to do based on the needs of the district. Communication is huge to understand what the students need, what the parents need, and what the families and staff need,” Meyer said. “Building relationships through effective communication strategies is an overall focus of the job along with seeing what the goals are, of the district in general and then seeing how communication can help in those channels.”
A big aspect of her job is updating the district website. The website is constantly being changed and integrated into the routines of students and family members. Along with the website, she works alongside teachers to channel many other communication methods to send out messages to students and their families.
“I was very fortunate in coming to La Porte that there are so many wonderful teachers in the district that were already doing a lot of these things and they are still continuing to do them from the schools. It has been a blessing that La Porte already has that,” Meyer said.
Working within a school system that is so willing to help aid in the process of ensuring every student is able to get what they need means a lot to Meyer. The La Porte School System works together to serve the entire community by ensuring the students of the area are getting exactly what they need to succeed in school.
“Being at a school is one of the best places to be able to give back to your community, to be able to see the needs of students and families, and to be able to serve in that capacity to where you see what their needs are,” Meyer said.
In order to find out what the needs of students and families are, surveys have been sent out. These surveys allow Meyer to use her background in marketing and communications and do what she sees fit in order to help those students and families.
“We're creating new surveys to reach out and say, ‘What would you like to see? What are some concerns?' or, 'What are ways that we can meet your needs?’ Being in my position, I'm able to be able to see that and, and help where I can using some of the skills that I've learned throughout my career when it comes to business,” Meyer said.
Along with being able to help students from behind the scenes, Meyer is able to go to the schools within the district and interact with the students.
“I love going to the schools. I love when I get to see the kids in action and when I get to interact with the teachers. When I get to go and see the kids learning and loving it and having a blast in the buildings and being in that environment is definitely my favorite part,” Meyer said.
Meyer is the mother of a six-year-old daughter, as well as a member of the vocalist ensemble Illumination, and she is able to balance these things along with her job. This is partly due to the positive environment she is in and how passionate she is about serving the community through her career.
“I also feel extremely lucky to have been able to join the team of administration here. They truly do care about the kids and they care about the community and they care about the people that they serve, and it makes it easy to come to work. It makes it easy to be here because you feel like you're contributing to that and to the ultimate goal of meeting the needs of the community,” Meyer said. “I truly am grateful for the opportunity to serve and work for La Porte, and this school and the administration have a lot of great, great things coming and plans. I look forward to being able to share the stories of the district.”