 Hidalgo Independent School District, TX
Less than a month before school was starting at the Hidalgo Independent School District in Texas, public relations specialist Arianna Vazquez was concerned that its new website would not be ready in time. Although she had contracted several months earlier with a local website developer and had the content ready to post, she still had not received any designs to review and the developer was pulled away for a family emergency.
Just the month before, however, Vazquez had seen a demo of SchoolSpan's website solution at a conference, and had been impressed. Under tight deadline pressure, she decided to see if SchoolSpan could possibly come to her rescue.
Fortunately, SchoolSpan's team was glad to help out. They provided an ideal combination of development and management modules to help the Hidalgo district launch a completed website in record time. "I loved that they took it on almost as a challenge, to see if they could really get a whole new website developed in only three weeks," Vazquez recounted.
The tools ended up being so easy to learn and use that Hidalgo was able to debut a fully functional, professional-looking and customized website when school opened in August. So far, Vazquez said proudly, the new website has gotten rave reviews from all audiences.
Hidalgo is one of about 40 small school districts located along the Mexican border in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, with current enrollment of about 3,300 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. More than 90% of students come from economically disadvantaged homes, and a majority are recent immigrants who entered school speaking little or no English.
Before Vazquez was hired in April, the district had only an outdated collection of web pages, but not an actual website. With the district's academic achievements and recognitions rising, it was time to have a fully functional website.
The Hidalgo Independent School District is the 2006 H-E-B Excellence in Education Award recipient, making it the best school district in all of Texas. In addition:
- Hidalgo High School was featured among the three highest performing high schools in Texas based on a national study done by Just for the Kids and sponsored by the National Center for Education Accountability (NCEA).
- District Superintendent Dr. Daniel King was named the 2006 Superintendent of the Year for its region, and is now among the five finalists for the state Superintendent of the Year Award.
- The Hidalgo Independent School District Board of Trustees has been selected as one of the five Honor School Boards of Texas, which will be competing for the ultimate award of being named the 2006 Outstanding School Board of Texas this October.
School officials and media from around the country took notice, and began contacting Hidalgo to learn from their success.
"When people would call us, they would always ask, 'Can we see your website?'" Vazquez commented.
Dr. King, district superintendent, said he had seen the immediate need for a website long before with the rise of technology growing in everyday life. He knew it had to be a priority at Hidalgo ISD.
"A website is definitely one of the best tools we have to help get the word out about the district's success to the parents and the entire community," Dr. King said.
Vazquez, a former newspaper reporter, was very familiar with other local school districts' sites, which she mostly found too busy and hard to navigate. They also looked pretty much the same, she added, because they all used one of two leading website vendors for the area.
What initially impressed her about SchoolSpan's solution was the attractive and functional design, Vazquez recalled. "It was the one I thought was the cleanest looking by far," she commented. "All the others I had seen were too cluttered and had too much distracting animation."
Using SchoolSpan's Content Builder website development module, Vazquez was able to start with pre-designed templates that made the program especially easy to use and learn. But it also had the flexibility to easily modify the templates and create a custom look and feel that set Hidalgo's website apart from the many other local districts, she added.
"I was able to design the home page myself, using my own pictures from our schools. SchoolSpan helped with the banner, and the rest was so easy and automatic that I could create the other pages myself."
Starting with one elementary school as a pilot, Hidalgo now plans to add a new school website each month, so that all seven campuses will eventually have their own individual websites linked from the main district site. "Each school will have a staff member designated to update the website," using the same Content Builder module that Vazquez has used for the rest of the site. "But because it's so easy, I'm sure it's not going to be a problem for them," she said.
With limited resources to get started, the flexibility of SchoolSpan's solution and pricing was a plus, according to Vazquez. "I really liked the idea of the separate modules, and that I can just buy what we need for now without having to buy the whole package."
In addition to Content Builder, which is SchoolSpan's premier module for creating website pages, Hidalgo also purchased a suite of other products including:
- a Calendar module, which is updated daily with events from across the district
- a Newsletter module for keeping subscribers updated about school news
- an eBlast module to enable parents and community members to subscribe to specific news and events from across the district
- Anonymous Alert, which allows anyone to alert school officials about potentially dangerous situations needing immediate attention
- File Cabinet, used as a resource document library for commonly accessed information
Despite having just launched the site, Vazquez is already exploring ideas for expanding it, such as enabling teachers to create their own websites and offer more online assignments for students.
Hidalgo recently received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create a new Early College High School, which requires all students to graduate with 30 to 60 hours of college credit. Having more advanced website tools available such as SchoolSpan's Teacher Advantage module will be instrumental in helping teachers design online coursework and give students the website experience they need.
Since its launch, Vazquez said that she has received unanimous praise for the website - from both within and outside of the district. "People are very happy with the website. They can get to everything quickly. It's been a good source for the media to get the information they need. For what we need right now, it's just perfect and it is only the beginning."
|
Introduction
