Barnesville School Website Receives Makeover
The Barnesville School District’s website received a makeover with quick links, school menus, sport schedules and more to make it more user-friendly and updated.
Barnesville school district’s director of technology Frank Ferrel, who works for the East Central Ohio Educational Service Center, managed the project, while ESC level one district tech Tyson Camsky helped update the site and continues to manage it.
The project for the redesign began last school year finishing in November.
When designing the new website, the project coordinators checked with vendors used by other districts and met with several other web developers.
Barnesville settled on SmartSites, paired with an app called Parent Square, choosing a template that will best work for the district.
Prior to beginning the redesign, Ferrel sent out a survey to see what links parents and site visitors often bookmark.
Ferrel stated that 90% of browsing today is done on a phone or tablet, so it was important for people to be able to access the website via an app on mobile devices. The app also has features that allow teachers to communicate with students or entire classes. Principals and the superintendent may now communicate directly with parents.
Ferrel described the app as “safe and monitored.”
Ferrel described the old website as “cluttered,” stating that it contained outdated links and documents.
“What we want is for everyone go to our website for everything,” he said. “And we want to make sure that when they do go to our website, they are going to find updated information that is easy to find.”
“If somebody lands on our homepage, and they want to find the athletic schedule or the district calendar menus … we want to make sure that they can get there in less than three clicks,” he said.
Ferrel added that kindergarten through twelfth grade websites are complex because you have to cater to staff, students, potential students, the district and community and break the information down to each grade level.
A staff directory is located within the app but it is not on the public website due to cybersecurity concerns.
The site has a new feature called “Quick Links” on the top right-hand corner that allows visitors to find popular and frequently-clicked links.
Features, including “Final forms”, “progressbook staff”, “progressbook parent”, “payschools central”, “Stay Safe, Speak Up,” cafeteria menus and sports tickets, may be found in the Quick Links tab.
Students may now submit reports anonymously to alert the district about concerns, such as a friend who isn’t doing well, someone who’s going through a difficult time or a student who has mentioned harming themselves. The reports may be used to request a wellness check and help ensure students get the support they need, Ferrel said.
For questions or issues regarding the site, citizens are asked to reach out to Camsky at tyson.camsky@bevsd.org.
“We want to make sure that people know that the website is our “go to” (form of communication), that’s the plan for everything,” Ferrel said. “We want to direct everybody to the website. That’s our main form of sharing news and getting out the word.”
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