Minneapolis Public Schools is set to have a new website by 2024, replacing websites for the district as well as many of its schools that officials call outdated, clunky and not user-friendly.
"Everybody recognizes that this is a huge marketing tool for parents," said Julie Schultz Brown, the district's executive director of marketing and communications. "The website needs to have all the information they need. And it's too hard to use our current one."
The school board in September approved a $383,000 contract with Finalsite, an international school website provider based in Connecticut. The websites will be built out over the next year while district staffers continue to get input from parents, students, teachers and department leaders on what the sites should look like.
When Rochelle Cox became interim superintendent in July, she named improved communication as one of her top priorities toward ensuring the district had a positive and welcoming feel. Leaders say that's important in attracting new families to the district and keeping current ones.
"For new families, the website is often the first thing they see about MPS when they're investigating schools," Schultz Brown said. "It has to be clean, accurate and have all the information they need."
Minneapolis Public Schools has fewer than 28,000 students in grades K-12 this year, the result of a steep enrollment decline that has seen the district lose more than 7,000 students over the last five years.
"If you have a website that turns people off, how does that help enrollment?" Schultz Brown said. "There are so many things we can't control, but we can control this."
At many schools across the district, school websites are kept updated by the principal, a librarian or parent volunteer, Schultz Brown said. Some schools have chosen to make new websites outside the current system, using a Google site instead.
"Our current tools are so hard to use, they go off and create something different, which I totally understand," said Andrea Allis, a district marketing and communications specialist. "But that creates a whole new set of issues."
The system used for the district's high school websites is about two decades old, Allis said. Sites for elementary and middle schools use the same vendor but have a more updated system.
Ensuring that all the school sites are on one platform makes updating them easier and more uniform, Allis said. But schools will still be able to brand their own sites to fit their individual culture, style and needs.
The biggest challenge now is combing through all the outdated and superfluous information on the district and schools' sites, she said.
"Over the past 20 years we've made some updates, but there hasn't been a comprehensive look at what we have," Allis said, adding that the new websites will prioritize content and language to help families find out what they need to know. "We need to be using the site more like a marketing tool and less like a filing cabinet."
