Moorestown School District Unveils New Website

Those who log on to Moorestown school district’s homepage will find a new user experience awaiting them. The district unveiled its redesigned website last week.

More than a year’s worth of work went into the new website, said Kate Napolitano, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. The work included months of stakeholder interviews, plus building and populating the new site.

“It captures the new face of Moorestown. It depicts the energy in this town,” Napolitano said. “It’s clean and crisp, and really has a community feel to it.”

A rotating picture feature in the upper right hand corner of the page, which changes based on which school site the user is on, adds to that community feel, she said.

The black and gold design relies heavily on drop-down menus. Information is organized under drop-drop menus on, for example, curriculum or information especially for teachers, parents or students.

The new site is also more uniform than previous versions. Every school has the same basic site design. No matter which school is selected, district announcements appear in the center of the page with school-specific information below. While the drop-down menu titles don’t change, the information contained in each does.

Napolitano predicted parents will especially appreciate the new calendar feature. Every school site has both a districtwide and school-specific calendar available.

“The new site organizes all of the information in one place, and users won’t have to click around so much to find what they’re looking for,” Napolitano said. “It’ll be a lot easier for the public to use.”

Features from the old site, such as Genesis, Online Backpack and the lunch program page, are included in the new version, although not active yet.

Although the site is now public, more information and features will continue to appear as tweaks and additions occur. For example, there is blogging capability for teachers to use that isn’t public yet. There also will be a ticker feature for important announcements or emergencies.

“We’ll be featuring different departments as we add things,” Napolitano said. “Right now we’re checking the links and getting the rest of the information in there before the school year.”

As part of the redesign, the district switched its Web service provider from Schoolwires to SchoolFusion. Moorestown staff members migrated the information to the new site at no additional cost to the district. SchoolFusion is less expensive, Napolitano said, saving the district “thousands of dollars.” She could not immediately be more specific on that figure.

Along with the new site comes a slight shuffle in administrative duties. Patricia Rowe, one of the main people who shepherded the redesign, will be the webmaster and the supervisor of educational technology.