When students first visited the school website this year, they encountered an entirely new user interface. Rather than a carousel of still images, the focal point is now an aerial drone shot of the entire school, followed by the latest local news and profiles of the students and staff.

The district first decided to redesign both the school and district websites to make them more representative of student accomplishments and school updates. After nine months of work, led by Tanya De La Cruz, the district’s public information officer, the new website was finally published this August.

“We initially reached out to parents, staff and students in November 2022 to understand what features on a school and district website were most important to them, what pages they used the most and why they went to the website,” De La Cruz said. “It was important for us that users could find the information they wanted quickly, and that the websites remained updated.”

In particular, the website’s “Quick Links,” which are used to help users find the sites they access frequently with a single quick, have been updated from a sidebar to a horizontal navigation bar, making them more easily accessible with a small icon attached to each of them. The website’s current drone shot was created using a DJI Mavic Air 2 drone in collaboration with the school’s Drone Club, filmed by class of ’23 alumnus Anand Agrawal.

One of the most important additions is the new “Contact Us” button that allows for parents, students and members to easily get their questions answered. Now, users have a more straightforward way to contact the school, which is also able to easily collect feedback. The new “Meet Our Students & Staff” section, pulled from the District Community Newsletter Student & Staff Spotlight, aims to provide a quick introduction to various members of the school.

In the future, the administration hopes to add a staff directory onto the website. Any suggestions for future additions can be requested through a button labeled “Report a Problem” in the website footer or through the “Contact Us” button at the website header.

“The website gives viewers an opportunity to see the remarkable community at each of our schools,” Cruz said. “We have received quite a number of compliments and appreciations for the new site, navigation and experience.”