School District Plans to Revamp Website: Make Suggestions in the Comments Section
The district consulted parents about what they wanted to see on the Somerville Public Schools website.
Weary of navigating the Somerville Public School's labyrinthine website? Relief might come soon: the district is planning to revamp the site based on input from parents.
Gretchen Kinder, coordinator of research and development, information and grants for the district, has organized a series of meetings for parents committed to improving the district. The site is included in the itinerary.
While only two parents attended Tuesday night's Ad Hoc Committee on Strategic Planning and Outreach meeting to discuss building a new site, Kinder said that five other parents attended a noon meeting.
Kinder reviewed sections of the site with the parent committee and solicited their impressions.
"It's very hard to navigate the website," said one mother in attendance. "How many pages do I have to click through to find information?"
There are shortcuts to all of the pages, Kinder said, but they're difficult to find.
Here are some of the suggestions that the parents at the evening meeting made to improve the website:
- Put a "parents" tab on the navigation bar on the home page.
- Have teacher and staff e-mail addresses listed instead of instructing parents to use the first initial and last name to figure out the address.
- Replace the contact forms with e-mail addresses
- Eliminate teacher websites for teachers who don't update or use them.
- List a telephone directory for teachers
- Include the subjects teachers teach next to their names
Three years ago, the district held a number of similar focus groups that shaped the current website.
"I'm not sure it's relevant now, considering what we're learning from parents and guardians," said Kinder.
Kinder said she would like to see a faculty and staff directory on the home page's navigation bar. She also spoke of possible improvements to the parent portal.
"From my perspective, this is the least developed part of the site," she said.
"We really need to re-do this... badly."
The parents said they wanted to see a list of school policies and a resource guide on the page. In fact, a "Family Resource Guide" exists on the site, Kinder said, but she admitted that it's pretty well buried.
She also said that the information most parents seek out when visiting the school site concerns lunch menus, after-school programs and registration.
The district has looked at other school sites such as the Scarsdale, N.Y. Public Schools Web site, as a model.
With the suggestions gathered from parents, the district will draft a website improvement plan. Kinder will discuss the draft at a May 10 meeting that will be open to the public.
A Teacher
6:31 pm on Thursday, April 14, 2011
Speaking as a teacher, we basically don't use the sps website anymore. Too frustrating, no navigation...can't find anything on it.
tony
9:28 pm on Thursday, April 14, 2011
It is a classic example of someone who doesnt know what needs to be done to maintain a great web page.....look back 3 years and figure out what has changed......it isnt rocket science......the navigation has been stripped and is a waste of time.... not sure who did this.....but have some idea.........
EBWhite
6:21 pm on Friday, April 15, 2011
I have seen more intelligent website from a group of kids. This is is non-informative. Over the winter, the TV had the No School announcement hours before it was posted on the web. The site is unmanagable. There is no easy way to find any information and in fact when you do, they tell you to call the school. Really? The pictures on the front page seem to always be of one school. The text is either way too big or way too small. Do my tax dollars really pay for this? How much does this cost per year? Is this another political position in which the person really doesn't know what they are doing? Hire a professional, who will post only the revelant information? Is it really necessary to have the same message on every school's home page? I've seen worse, but I have certainly seen a lot better.
Dr. Walter Bishop
9:12 pm on Friday, April 15, 2011
I agree with EB. Hire a professional and get it done. There are so many things happening in the schools that could and should be communicated by the website.
Mary Ann Fieri
10:03 am on Saturday, April 16, 2011
The worst thing about the website is that every page opens in a new window and there is no navigation. so the website is like one big popup ad. That needs to be fixed. Thank you for giving us an opportunity for comments.
EBWhite
10:17 am on Saturday, April 16, 2011
I agree with Mary Ann. Too many windows and still no information. I would like a permanent navigation, either on the side or at the top with the information in the middle. Some pages haven't changed in years or the information is so old it's not useful. They should be gotten rid of. The calendar, which is one of the main reasons I use the website, is so confusing with its color coding. Can't I just pick a school and see what's happening that week instead of going through the entire list for all of the schools? Just some suggestions from a parent who can't attend these meetings. Thanks for asking for my imput.
Somerville Public Schools
9:37 am on Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Thanks for the constructive feedback!
Navigation is high on our list of priorities - we stripped the left hand nav bar three years ago because it had more than 30 items in it (bad design) and still haven't restored it. We'll also standardize fonts to something that is web friendlier, and are likely to decide to strip all content EXCEPT that can be updated by Central Administration and/or by teachers/administrators/volunteers who are excited about keeping their classroom/departmental website up to date.
We'll be looking for volunteers over the summer to help with this project. Contact Jen Capuano in our volunteer office, www.somerville.k12.ma.us/volunteer, to sign on to help!
From,
-gk-
Gretchen Kinder
Coordinator of R&D, Public Information and Grants
Somerville Public Schools
EBWhite
4:28 pm on Thursday, April 28, 2011
Gretchen:
Once again the SPS is taking the easy way out, in my opinion. Asking for volunteers to help design the website is asking for trouble. The old adage "too many cooks spoil the brooth" is truely appros here. I don't know of many teachers who have extra time to update their websites neither do most admistrators. If they do, then they are not doing their job very well. A half-day lesson is of no help, either. Why do you think that a group of people who are unskilled in the web design business could decide what content needs to be included or for that matter that their child's school was not highlighted more often. My recommendation is to have a small salary for each school and one person in charge of making any changes to the website. That narrows the field of who is at fault when something goes wrong is narrowed. Volunteers are wonderful assests to the school but unfortunately, life gets in the way, in more often some of them can's complete what they started in a timely fashion.
Thanks for listening, but I'm not sure that these changes are going to improve the website. I guess "seeing is believing."