12 Elements Every School Website Should Include
By: Paul Steinbrueck
School Web sites have two primary goals. The first is to act as an online brochure for prospective students and parents, providing them with as much information as possible to help them decide if your school may be right for them.
The second goal is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of communication between students, parents, teachers, and administrators.
Here's a list of 12 components every school Web site should include in order to reach those two goals.
1. Friendly, appealing design
Parents are looking for a school that exemplifies excellence; therefore, it's vital that the school Web site – often a parent's first impression – exemplifies excellence. If your Web site looks cheap, neglected, obsolete, or disorganized, people will infer that about your school, as well.
2. Pictures of happy, diverse, smart-looking students
When prospective parents see images of students, they're going to subconsciously ask themselves, "Do I want my child to become like that?" Pictures of actual students are best, but you have to get the consent of the students' parents to use them and, for safety reasons, should only refer to students by their first name, if at all. Using stock photos is fine, too. To attract students of all ages, genders, and ethnicities, it's important to represent them in the images you put on your site.
3. "About Us" page
This should describe the history and educational philosophy of the school, plus any affiliations, associations, accreditations, and awards the school may have received. If you're ambitious, create a short video overview and embed it in this page.
4. Enrollment information
There should be at least one page designed specifically for prospective students and parents that describes the application process, deadlines, and any openings the school may currently have.
5. Contact information for the main school office
6. Staff directory
This should preferably include a contact form for every teacher and administrator so that parents can get in touch with teachers if they'd like to.
7. Map of your school's location
8. Up-to-date calendar of school-wide events
9. Schedules for all the sports teams
10. E-newsletter with subscription and archives online
Having a school-wide e-newsletter is a must. Schools may also want to have e-newsletters for each class and extracurricular activities.
11. Documents
This section should include frequently used documents, such as permission slips, application for enrollment, student handbook, lunch order forms, and so on. Making these documents available online can save considerable time and expense over printing, handing out, or mailing them repeatedly. PDF files are usually the best format for these documents.
12. Class pages
Each teacher ought to have a page for the class(es) they teach. Ideally, these could be updated weekly with news and homework assignments, but even something as simple as a link to the class syllabus is very helpful
What do you think are the most important elements for a school Web site?
Paul Steinbrueck is the chief executive officer of OurChurch.com.
