EDITORIALS
Irving Morning News
April 4, 2002

Sites To Behold

Just how useful are school district Web sites?

This is the second of a two-part series examining the Web sites of local school districts and cities. According to a national study released earlier this month, people no longer care so much about what they might see on Internet sites; they want to know what they can do with them.

Last week, we tried to answer that question through a look at city Web sites, and this week we are focusing on area school districts.

www.irvingisd.net

It's no wonder the Irving Independent School District's Web site was recently honored at the annual convention of the Texas School Public Relations Association in Austin for the job it does communicating with the public. Specifically, the district was only one of six districts in the state with more than 10,000 students to win a Gold Star for its site.

A school district has to communicate with several parts of the public, and the Irving site wastes no time or space reaching out to all of its stakeholders. On the homepage, the District Weekly news items are the main staple, but in the upper right corner there is a section for teachers to access their intranet. That part of the page also includes links for educators for staff development opportunities.

On the left side of the page are all the useful links people need, but most of the timely information can be found in the District Weekly. Whether you are a student, parent or a taxpayer, the updated, brief articles give you a good summary of what is happening in the schools.

The site does more than just inform, though. For example, it recently was used for community members to sound off on the calendar proposals.

Also, through the Irving Schools Foundation section, students can use the Web to apply for scholarships, and teachers can use it to apply for grants. Outside vendors can track bids online, though they must be submitted in sealed envelopes. On another page, job applicants can request an application online, and teachers can even apply on the Internet.

But mostly, the school district uses its site to inform and solicit feedback. On almost every page there is a call for involvement from the public. For example, on the page devoted to the evolving curriculum, visitors are invited to weigh in and are directed to state brochures on the most recent changes to the state's testing system.

There is also an updated list of committees that are looking for more parental involvement, covering everything from textbook review to bilingual parent meetings. Keeping this list updated can provide a valuable resource for parents, and for those always on the lookout for a new way to get involved, this page might be worth bookmarking for quick access.

Speaking of quick access, most of the important pages on the site are one click away from being translated into Spanish.

Finally, it's worth noting that the board of trustees section is more comprehensive than most other districts. The section is easy to access from the homepage and includes in-depth profiles of each trustee. It also includes contact information, but no e-mail addresses.

So maybe there is a little room for improvement, but not much.

www.cfbisd.edu

Clearly, the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District's Web site is in transition.

Several links would not open, and the Spanish translation button sends visitors to an off-site translation process that took too long to load.

The homepage is well organized and very attractive and efficient. Although it is nice-looking, the pages it takes visitors to are often hard to look at. There is a definite difference in the level of sophistication, but that really just shows how much improvement the district is making in its site.

When it is completely updated, we hope to see some continuity in design standards and more useful links.

The homepage promises a searchable calendar soon, which will be a useful feature.

The "What's New" part of the homepage, in the meantime, provides the most useful links. It's clear that this is where the district is putting its energy for now. Quick links take you to the current board agenda and columns by the superintendent. That column of information also allows students to click on an online scholarship application.

The news articles, on the other hand, are wasted space. They advertise tidbits as vague as "Student art exhibit," but to see the whole article, you have to first click on "District News" and scroll down until you find the item that caught your eye from the laundry list of headlines on the main page.

The site does a good job of linking the public with trustees. The board's section includes e-mail links and other contact information for each trustee and up-to-date agendas for meetings. And for parents new to the district, the school locator function is a solid interactive tool.

It's a solid Web site for now that has a nice new facade in its attractive homepage. We look forward to seeing greater improvements deeper within the site.