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Schools' Web site out front |
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By Sarah Knott
Enquirer contributor
December 31, 2002
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Projects such as the unique small schools initiative
have given the West Clermont school district, a
9,000-student, 900-teacher entity covering 54 square
miles, a reputation for being at the forefront of
progressive public education. Now, that reputation has
spilled over to the Internet.
In September 2002, the school district tapped Web
development firm TELLUS to re-design and re-develop
their existing site. Administrators felt more could be
done to illustrate the district's identity as a
"community of learners," and the versatile nature of
the Internet could lend itself well to creating an
interactive bridge of communication never before seen
in public education. Several months later, the traffic
to www.westcler.org has nearly doubled from 203 users
a day to 374 users a day, and parents are raving about
the content-rich and easy-to-use site.
"Other schools across the country are probably
learning from the West Clermont site," says Betsy
Emery, TELLUS CEO and Cincinnati native. "They
created a foundation from which they can grow,
and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I'm surprised at how much feedback we've received."
Why is West Clermont different from any other school
district's site? Ms. Emery says that schools, like
small businesses, tend to create Web sites by piece
meal, adding new features one at a time over a period
of years. Without the budget of larger organizations,
schools haven't had access to professionally designed
systems that support their current objectives and
plans for the future. Their sites can often be
challenging for visitors to use and difficult for administrators to keep updated.
Ms. Emery described how TELLUS overcame those
tendencies by creating an "intelligent" system for westcler.org, one smart enough to provide each user with content that is relevant to them. Consequently, the same core site can be used by parents, teachers and administrators for a variety of purposes. And, TELLUS developed a foundation for very cost-effective future growth and a simple system for updates. The site is maintained by the district's own staff.
"If they want to create a new 'district employee only'
feature later, they can just add to the current system
rather than needing to create a new site," she says.
Most importantly, parents, teacher and administrators
believe the site has helped strengthen the links of communications between them. The most popular areas for users are the report cards pages, the volunteer opportunities, homework help and parent resources.
Interested in finding out more about web development
firm TELLUS? Although it's based in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, it has a serious Cincinnati influence. CEO
Emery is from Terrace Park and a Union Institute grad; the
company's VP of sales is based in Milford. Emery says
a few additional projects in the Tristate area may be
in the works, too. Check them out at www.TELLUS.com
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