Hello, EVIT parents! This is the fourth in a series of newsletters to give you more information about the East Valley Institute of Technology and how your family can get the most out of career and technical education. Today’s topic: Social media.

As the saying goes: Knowledge is power. And we want our EVIT parents to feel empowered and knowledgeable about our school and how their students are being prepared for the workforce. There are many ways to get the latest news and information from EVIT. On our website – www.evit.com – we regularly post news items and updates. But you can also find us on a variety of social media platforms.

Facebook

EVIT has a number of pages on Facebook. Follow our main page – www.facebook.com/evitnews --for photos and information about activities in our high school and post-secondary adult programs, features on successful EVIT alumni, updates on EVIT Governing Board meetings, posts that introduce you to EVIT employees – and much more! We also have separate Facebook pages for some of our programs.

Over 15,000 people follow EVIT’s main Facebook page. If you’re not one of them, then you may have missed our story about alum Jackie Chaussee Shappell who now operates her own bakery, or photos from FOX10 visiting our radio station this week because 88.7FM The Pulse won the title of Best High School Radio Station in the nation.

To follow us on Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/evitnews and at the top of the page click “Like.” There is also an option for you to share our page with your friends and invite them to like the page as well. In fact, we encourage you to like, share and comment on our Facebook posts. It gives us feedback and also helps introduce EVIT to other parents and students who may never have heard of the East Valley Institute of Technology.

If you have a private issue or concern, you can also send us a message on Facebook rather than commenting publicly. Good or bad, we want to hear from you!

Instagram

Instagram is a visually rich platform where we post many photos of students, staff and happenings at EVIT. Instagram is also the most popular social media platform among EVIT students. Our main Instagram account has over 4,200 followers. To join them, go to www.instagram.com/evitnews/ and hit the “follow” button.

YouTube

Who doesn’t love videos? To see the latest videos featuring EVIT campuses and students, go to www.youtube.com/evitnews and subscribe to our channel. We have many different kinds of videos, including student and parent testimonials, program videos, live coverage of our EVIT Governing Board meetings, and our “Good Morning, EVIT” podcasts hosted by Bre Marshall and featuring interviews with EVIT staff.

Twitter

Like your news in 280 characters or less? Then follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/evitnews. Have something you’d like to say about EVIT? Tweet it! You’ll find it can be a bit challenging – but also fun – to convey a thought in 280 characters. Like our other social media, we encourage you to share our tweets.

LinkedIn

If you don’t have a free LinkedIn account, we encourage you to sign up at www.linkedin.com. We also hope your student will create a LinkedIn account as well because LinkedIn is a great platform for networking, learning more about various industries and employers, and getting leads on jobs. Once you sign up, search for East Valley Institute of Technology and click the follow button on our profile so you will receive our posts.

Hashtags

If you’re social media savvy, then you know all about hashtags. If not, let us help you out. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by the # hash sign to identify content, topics, locations or a trending phrase. It can help your social media post to be seen by more people. It’s also a way to search for certain content. For example, if you want to see all Twitter posts with the hashtag #EastValley, then type in #EastValley in the search bar, and all tweets with that hashtag will come up.

The most common hashtags EVIT uses are #WeAreEVIT and #EVITChangesLives, so you can search social media for those hashtags and it will pull up our posts. We encourage you to also use those hashtags if you share something on social media about EVIT.

Let’s get social

We have created a little survey to get your feedback on what you’d like to see on our social media platforms: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8XGRRMN . We hope you’ll take a few minutes to respond to the survey so we have a better idea of what kinds of posts and information you are most interested in.

In other news:

• Enrollment for EVIT’s high school programs for the 2022-23 school year starts on Nov. 1. If you have another student who wants to enroll, they can start the process on Nov. 1 at www.evit.com/enroll. If your student is returning to EVIT next year, they will sign up in their class.
• Enrollment for EVIT’s post-secondary programs for adults is also is under way. Apply at: https://weareevit.formstack.com/forms/adult_app
• As mentioned above, Jackie Chaussee Shappell now operates her own bakery, Cake This!, out of her Queen Creek home. She credits EVIT with getting her through high school and preparing her for a career she loves. Read Jackie’s inspiring story: https://bit.ly/3BFg4Op
• The Culinary School @ EVIT will once again offer its Thanksgiving Bake Sale for the community. Why bake pies, rolls and other goodies when our wonderful Commercial Baking & Pastry Arts students can do it for you? We’ll send you the menu and directions on how to order when they are ready.

EVIT changes lives by loving our students and serving our community.

EVIT does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, age, or sexual orientation in admission and access to its programs, services, activities, or in any aspect of their operations, including hiring or employment practices. Contact the following employees regarding non-discrimination policies: Title IX/Title VII/EEOC Coordinator, EVIT Superintendent, 1601 W. Main St., Mesa, AZ 85201 or call (480) 461-4000, or by email at [email protected]; Section 504/ADA Coordinator, Tony Niccum, STEPS, 1601 W. Main St., Mesa, AZ 85201, or call (480) 461-4154 or by email [email protected]