School Sites: What’s the Plan?

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Map Legend
	Phase One Schools
	Phase Two Schools

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Apply for a school site >>

New School Sites

Visit the new websites at the schools that are participating in Phase Two:

Bandelier ES
Launched May 23, 2012
Dolores Gonzales ES
Launched May 7, 2012
Eisenhower MS
Launched May 17, 2012
Grant MS
Launched May 21, 2012
Jefferson MS
Launched April 11, 2012

John Baker ES
Launched May 25, 2012

Juvenile Detention Center
Launched April 23, 2012

La Luz ES
Launched May 25, 2012

Lavaland ES
Launched May 7, 2012
MacArthur ES
Launched May 21, 2012
nex+Gen Academy
Launched May 17, 2012
Rudolfo Anaya ES
Launched May 18, 2012
Sandia Base ES
Launched May 22, 2012
Wilson MS
Launched April 30, 2012
Zuni ES
Launched May 22, 2012

Check out the websites of the schools that participated in Phase One:

Alamosa ES
Launched Jan. 9, 2012
Cibola HS
Launched Jan. 31, 2012
Cleveland MS
Launched Feb. 3, 2012
Collet Park ES
Launched Jan. 31, 2012
Eubank ES
Launched Feb. 10, 2012
Freedom HS
Launched Feb. 17, 2012
H. Humphrey ES
Launched Feb. 10, 2012
Lew Wallace ES
Launched Feb. 2, 2012
School on Wheels HS
Launched Feb. 10, 2012
Tierra Antigua ES
Launched Feb. 17, 2012

Already applied?
Check the waiting list.

The Project

The Web Team is working on a project to unify and standardize all the regular and alternative APS school websites throughout the district. The new websites will enable APS to present a searchable, modern, and familiar online presence for every school in the district.

The school sites will also allow the district to publish important messages and events on every school website, and to make changes to school websites when school personnel are unable to do so.

The Tool

APS has chosen School Loop, a content management system designed specifically for school districts, as the district-wide school website tool. Phase One of the project began in the 2011 Fall semester.

School Loop is a content management system for schools, which allows school administrators, teachers, and staff to easily post and maintain information for easy access by parents and students. Check School Loop out in other districts >>

How we chose School Loop

The Web Team analyzed five potential systems, including the one that currently runs www.aps.edu and department websites, and chose School Loop, which proved to be the best combination of cost-efficiency, flexibility, and long-term sustainability.

To assist with requirements definitions we:

Analyzed current school websites throughout APS
Analyzed school websites in other districts
Held stakeholder meetings with teachers, principals, technology coordinators, and parents from across the district
Performed testing in sandbox instances of several systems

Benefits

School Loop has many benefits for schools and teachers.

It’s Free for Schools - the design, migration, training, and maintenance of all the school websites will be supported by the district.
Feature-Rich Teacher Sites - teachers will have the ability to create free websites and will be given training and support by the district.
Consistent, yet Customizable Layout - all the school websites will have consistent layouts and content elements so parents will enjoy familiar site architecture and features from school to school and will always know where to find the information they need.
One Tool Throughout the District - if principals, technology coordinators, or teachers switch schools within the district, they won’t have to relearn a new tool.

This also means that tech coordinators can support each other better!

Emergency News and Weather Delay Notifications - emergency news and weather delay/cancellation notifications will be posted on school homepages.

For example: when there is a snow delay for APS, the Web Team will post notifications on the APS district website and the school homepages informing parents and students of delays and cancellations as they happen.

Web Team Support - the Web Team will have the ability to make needed changes to school sites when their webmasters are unavailable (or if they need help performing certain tasks).
File Sharing - staff will have the ability to log in and share files with other staff at their school, a different school, or at the district level.

Timeline

The school sites project has been divided into seven phases, each including schools that have volunteered to be early adopters (volunteer your school now!).

Phase One: 10 schools
Phase Two: 15 schools
Phase Three: 25 schools
Phase Four: 25 schools
Phase Five: 25 schools
Phase Six: 25 schools
Phase Seven: 17 schools

The first phase included the smallest number of volunteer schools to allow us to work closely with the administrators, staff, and teachers to ensure future phases run smoothly.

Components of Each Phase
Each of the phases will follow the same structure:

Identify schools to be included in the next phase
Implement the school designs based on information provided by school webmasters
Create sites using exiting school website content
Create teacher classroom sites using existing content from teachers
Activate teacher and staff accounts
Provide in-person training for school webmasters and teachers
Launch and celebrate!

We’re posting regular updates to the Web Team News folder, if you're interested in tracking our progress. Stay tuned!

Apply for a New School Website

We’re reserving places in each of the project phases for schools that are enthusiastic about being early adopters of the new school website tool.

If your school would like to be in the first phases of the project, we encourage you to fill out the our school website form.

Volunteer schools will be selected with consideration to these few priorities:

Enthusiasm - if you’re looking forward to getting a new website, and are thinking positively about the possibilities School Loop presents your school.
Lack of Website - if your school doesn’t have a website at all.
Inability to Update Site - if your school isn't able to make updates to your current site.
Cost of Current Site - if you're spending a lot of money maintaining your current site.
Presence of a Technology Coordinator - if your school has an enthusiastic technology coordinator who is willing and able to maintain your school site and assist your teachers in maintaining their classroom sites.

Apply to be part of the project >>

If you don’t make it into our current phase, you’ll automatically be added to the waiting list for the next phase.

What You Can Expect From Us

School Website Migration:

If your school has a website, the Web Team will migrate the content into your new School Loop website by coping and pasting it.
If your school doesn’t have a website yet, or if your website is so outdated you don’t want to use the content, the Web Team will work with you to get content prepared for your new site.

Teacher/Classroom Website Migration:

Each teacher at your school can have a website for his or her classroom (teachers will be responsible for maintaining their classroom sites).
The Web Team will work with school technology coordinators to train and support teachers.

Maintenance:
Your site is yours, and you’ll be able to make any changes you want -- we won’t get in your way. Staff at your school will be responsible for maintaining your school website, but the Web Team will provide training and support so that you are comfortable making changes to your school website.

Site Design:
You’ll get a pre-designed template, which will be applied district-wide. It will look something like the screenshots below (click on the thumbnails to view them larger).

Elementary Schools	Middle Schools	High Schools

You’ll be able to make changes to make the site suit your unique school community, including:

Changing colors to match your school colors
Uploading the photos on your homepage
Creating image slideshows to include throughout your site
Posting news and events
Creating content pages
Creating pages for teachers, classrooms, athletics, and clubs
Providing staff listings and contact information

Your Site Address (aka URL):

All APS school sites will be granted aps.edu addresses like this:

albuquerquehigh.aps.edu
AHS.aps.edu
albuquerquebulldogs.aps.edu

If your school already pays to have a custom domain name like albuquerquebulldogs.com, you can use that, but it counts as one of your three.

What We’ll Expect From You

In order to ensure that migrating your site is a smooth, positive experience, we want to make sure you’re as enthusiastic as we are about your new site. With that in mind, this is what we’ll be expecting from you:

Two administrators at your school will be identified to act as webmasters for your new school website.
The webmasters will make themselves available for training.
The webmasters will take an active role in training other staff and teachers to maintain other parts of the site (clubs, departments, etc.), and teacher homepages.

You’ll be offered continuous support from the Web Team should you ever need help with your new website, and one of our biggest goals is to provide the training and tools for staff and teachers to post and update the content on their sites. You are, after all, the experts on what’s happening in your school!

Examples of School Loop in other districts

If you’re interested in seeing more School Loop sites, you can view them at http://www.yolo.k12.ca.us/portal/school_list or click on some of the individual school sites below.

Please remember that although School Loop has amazing tools that allow teachers and parents to communicate one-on-one, and students to interact with their teachers online, APS has chosen the basic version of School Loop for now. If we like the tool, we may expand and use it for more school functions in the future!

Los Angeles Unified School District