[thelist] Elementary School Websites

[Scott Rutledge]

Ideally?  "Make it INTERESTING"!  

FIRST: For me, I'd LOVE to see an UP-TO-DATE (there! I said it!)
CALENDAR on my kids' website... You know, one that actually has ALL OF
THE UPCOMING EVENTS at the school, whether as part of the school or
extracurricular stuff, that's coming up in the next 2 months (or more,
basically as far out into the future as possible).  Of course, as you
know, the most important element of this is keeping it maintained,
current/up-to-date (which my Kids' school is NOT), which requires more
of a "process" (for someone to be designated and given
responsibility/accountability for keeping it up to date) than it is a
design issue, but still, good design can work wonders for a website
here!

SECOND: In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you could build some
sort of FLASH preview right on the school's home page that would
basically roll through the next 2-3 "Upcoming Events" (with pictures,
sounds or music, or even a voice-over talking about the event) and when
clicked upon would link to the Calendar page, that would be really cool,
and keep the parents coming back for more! (OK, you asked for my
"ideal"...) 

THIRD: OH YEAH - and DON"T FORGET (an oft-overlooked but HUGELY HELPFUL
thing, for both kids and parents) - TRY TO PUT AN UP-TO-DATE SCHOOL
LUNCH MENU/SCHEDULE UP!!!  The kids ask me at least 2-3 times each week,
"what's for lunch today???" to which I have to reply, "gee, I don't
know..."  That should be easy enough, and you could even make it so that
it's database-driven, and pull the current/next day's lunch menu off of
the database automatically to display it on the Home Page in a little
"What's Up Today?" or "Today's Briefs" section, so that kids and parents
wouldn't have to navigate through the web site to the right page just to
quickly check out what's on for lunch... (This has the same
maintenance/up-keep issues as the School/Event Calendar, as above...but
could incorporate the same concept there, by using a database approach
and pulling out the key relevant items for today to display on the Home
Page in this same "What's Up Today?" section...)

FOURTH: Oh yeah, also:  how 'bout a "Profile" section, that has pictures
(or better yet, brief video clips!!!) of all of the key staff members
(superintentdant, principal, vice principal(s), nurse, secretary) and
teachers, with brief, standardized self-descriptions like who they are,
what grade they teach, what classroom they're in, perhaps where they're
from or some other brief background - have a "script" for each teacher
and key staff person to read from, using a "fill-in-the-blanks"
approach, and keep it brief... Having this done as a multi-media (video
and/or sound) presentation would be much more interesting than your
typical boring HTML "splat" text.... That'd be really cool, also.  Make
sure to put in a "Mailto:" link in each person's profile, so that
parents have a way of quickly and easily contacting them with questions,
issues, concerns, problems, praise....

FIFTH:  Allow the PTA (or any other school-supportive organization) to
have some "space" on it, and encourage them to appoint someone who's
responsibility it will be to keep that page/space up-to-date... Upcoming
events, next meetings, fund-raisers, last meeting's minutes and key
decisions made....

SIXTH:  A "School Board re-cap" page might be nice, highlighting key
school board decisions, policy changes, etc...

FINALLY: All of the things that you suggest in your list sound good,
except one that I feel a bit "squishy" about....school records. I guess
I'd have to think long and hard about that, before I'd want to see MY
kids' school records up and available on-line.... With all of the
weirdos and predators out there today, why risk it?  My advice: keep
student-personal information of any kind OFF of the site...

Have a good one!

Scott Rutledge
Managing Director
The Constellation Group
2082 Avenue of the Trees
Carlsbad, CA  92008
ph: 760.845.1611
f:   760.434.4655
email: scott.rutledge at constellation-group.com <
mailto:scott.rutledge at constellation-group.com
<mailto:scott.rutledge at constellation-group.com> >
web:  http://www.constellation-group.com
<http://www.constellation-group.com>  <
http://www.constellation-group.com <http://www.constellation-group.com>
>

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-----Original Message-----
From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Ken Kogler
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 5:35 AM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: [thelist] Elementary School Websites


Greetings all. It's been a good 6 months or so since I last followed
thelist (new jobs will do that to a person), but I once again find
myself in a situation where I could use some of evolt's collective
knowledge. (I've been keeping up with web dev in my spare time, but
that's no substitute for doing it professionally. I've got some catching
up to do!)

But anyway, back on topic...

Do any of you know of any good elementary school websites? Those of you
with children in primary or elementary school -- what would you *like*
to see in a school website?

Obviously anything a school can do to foster communication between the
parent, school, teacher, and student is our primary focus. We're putting
all forms and applications, student records, homework assignments, etc.
online. 

I just can't help but feel that we're overlooking some things.

Thanks in advance!

--ken

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