By Bugle Staff
To meet the ever-growing need for advanced digital communications, Valley View School District 365U will introduce a new and improved smartphone-friendly website later this week.
“This website will help create new and engaging community conversations on our journey to becoming one of the top performing school districts in the state,” said VVSD Superintendent James Mitchem Jr. “Excellent two-way communication with our stakeholders is vital to the support of our students and staff, which is a key pillar in our Strategic Plan.”
The district website will feature an easy-to-read calendar, VVSD’s anonymous bullying reporting tool (Sprigeo), “Ask the Superintendent,” a new Back-To-School section loaded with information on free or reduced cost meals, daily meal menus, student health and immunizations, 2016-17 early release dates, registration and school supplies, as well as access to the online meal payment app, My School Bucks, the VVSD online fee payment app, email notifications and VVSD social media.
In addition, the redesigned website will include larger and clearer photographs and one-click news stories with an easy-to-search archive containing news and feature stories from recent months.
“Families, staff and community members want a simple way to connect to our district and find the information they are looking for,” said VVSD Digital Learning Specialist Nicole Eimer, who spearheaded development of the redesigned website. “We hope this redesign not only gives our schools a fresh and new look, but also showcases our efforts to improve communication districtwide.”
The website’s URL will remain www.vvsd.org. The debut of the redesigned, user-friendly website marks the beginning of a plan to phase out the current Edline websites for all 22 VVSD schools and replace them with fresh and engaging Schoolwires websites hosted by Blackboard. This transition will simplify current methods of maintaining teacher web pages, while incorporating more engaging and digitally-connected classroom tools.
Each student currently has an Edline account where grades for each class are listed on a regular basis. Blackboard is an educational technology company who recently bought out ParentLink, which the district uses for telephone communications. Blackboard will now streamline all services.
Valley View Early Childhood Center and VVSD’s Secondary Transition Experience Program (S.T.E.P.) will be the first two schools to pilot the new look. All five middle schools will make the change before the end of the year with both high schools and all 12 elementary schools following suit in 2017.