Last year I wrote about the qualities of a good school district website. Unfortunately, the school district in which my kids go to school didn’t read that blog post or didn’t take any action based on it. That was driven home this week as we attempted to find the school supply lists and the schedule for the start of the school for our kids.

The obvious place to look for a school supply list and the schedule for the start of the school year is the school’s website. Unfortunately, that has been updated since the end of the last school year. Supply lists? Nowhere to be found. Schedule? The calendar for August is completely blank. 

So how did we find the information that we needed? A friend who used to work in the district shared a Facebook post with me. At that point it was three days old! And what if I didn’t use Facebook (like an increasing number of people)? We’d still be wondering about supply lists and schedules. 

As I wrote last year, make the information that parents need the first and most obvious thing on your school’s website. Nobody is going to the school’s website in August to find out the results of a fundraising challenge from the previous spring nor do they care about pictures from a staff development meeting. 

On a related note, here are my thoughts on newsletters versus social media and blogs for tech coaches. 

p.s. I still think it’s criminal that public schools don’t provide all of the resources that students need. Supply lists that cost families $50+ per student represent a financial hardship for many families and puts their children at a disadvantage from the first day of school.