Got web? Investing in a district website: an effective site can help you reach your organizational goals.

School technology concerns for the past two decades have rightly focused on the classroom. But since the debut of the World Wide Web in 1989, little serious debate has focused on the purpose of a school's presence in cyberspace.

School and school district websites began to mushroom in the mid-1990s in what looked like a rush to stake a cyberclaim in a new frontier. As a byproduct, these early experiments also seemed like a good place to let parents know what's going on in the local school district.

Today, it is all too easy to find district websites that are little more than electronic bulletin boards presenting information in random, sometimes bizarre fashion. One school district's home page provided prominent links to information about a 3rd grade teacher's state park field trip and the wrestling team's season schedule from last year without any mention of other grade-level news or sports teams.

Even more common than randomness is information overload: school website home pages "on steroids" with hundreds of text links, flashing text and photos.

Now that many district websites are approaching adolescence, it is time to consider or reconsider what an online presence can do--beyond displaying an exciting design and the latest technological bells and whistles. From a public and community relations perspective, school system leaders should examine how their district might commit limited resources to maintain an effective website to achieve important organizational goals.

Building Reputations

Public relations is more than the sum of its visible parts: district newsletters, brochures on the proposed budget, school calendars, news releases and special events. Public relations is about building and maintaining strategic relationships with key publics on whom the survival of the organization depends. These relationships are based on how an organization's actions are perceived by its key publics and its reputation. Such relationships are often enhanced through effective communication.

School districts are interested in maintaining good relationships with a variety of key publics, including parents, students, school employees, taxpayers, volunteers and government officials. Any of these stakeholders' actions--a teacher strike, student protests or a defeated referendum--can limit and even severely hamper a district's operations. The most common school communication efforts revolve around (1) support for school budgets and (2) reputation-boosting activities in academics and extracurricular ventures.

Just like businesses operating on a financial bottom line, schools act deliberately to achieve their bottom lines by producing well-rounded, academically superior graduates. To do so, schools need adequate budgets and progressive programs supported by qualified employees and involved parents who value education. Schools with good reputations can attract both through solid public relations efforts.

Reputations are built based on what a person or organization says and does and how its publics perceive those actions, real or not. Simply put, according to Dennis Wilcox and Glen Cameron in their book Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, "it is the track record of an organization in the public's mind." As such, a reputation is not something that an organization can produce because it's created in the public mind. But it can be managed.

Positive reputations can be strengthened, according to Public Relations: The Profession and the Practice, through trust-building activities including:

* Openness and honesty. The public will think more positively about an organization that is forthright in providing information accurately about its goals and how it operates.

* Consistent actions. Do what you say. Don't say one thing, and do another.

This is particularly true of public institutions, such as schools, that have an obligation to report on their operations.

Managing Reputations

The Internet is now considered a mainstream mass medium, equal in audience reach to newspapers, television and radio. The latest research shows a whopping 72 percent of American adults are online, and they spend an average of 14 hours each month surfing the Web. At least 62 percent of American households have one or more computers, and 63 percent of children ages 3-17 are using the Internet at home.

The Web is increasingly the place where people are going first for information. A study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found a majority of Americans use the Internet regularly to get information and that at least 80 percent expect to find reliable news, health care and government services information. The Internet is also entwined in our most basic daily interactions, such as shopping. This past holiday season, consumers spent more than $30 billion on gifts online.

Another Pew study found that parents with children under 18 were more likely to use the Internet than non-parents, and that parents were "generally more enthusiastic about technology today and less burdened by technological change than non-parents."

With more and more people relying on the Internet, websites are the organization's public face to their communities and the world. As public institutions supported by taxpayer dollars, school districts need to be particularly responsive to the concerns of various groups.

A Strategic Plan

Suggestions for developing a strategic communication approach for school district websites follow.

* Do the research.

The first step toward improving your website is research. Use a survey or focus groups of key publics (parents, employees, students, volunteers, taxpayers) to ask basic questions about their impressions of the current site and the type of information they would like to see. A customer satisfaction survey on the district's website could capture opinions of current users, while modified focus groups conducted in school computer labs could solicit opinions of users and nonusers.

Also, several software tracking programs can provide user information statistics, such as how many unique users visited the site, the length of the visit, the most commonly visited pages and other user activities. Research about users should be solicited continuously, while gathering nonuser input once a year is sufficient.

* Create a planning committee.

The second step is an administrative or school board-appointed website planning committee whose members come from all key constituencies, including an administrator, board member and the site's webmaster. A wide representation will bring fresh perspectives about informational and navigational needs.

* Create goals and objectives.

This committee should develop goals and objectives for the site, as well as user policies. Schools need to determine what purpose the website plays in the overall public relations program. Is it simply to disseminate information or is it to build support for school goals?

Strategic school districts will go with the latter and use their website and all its communication activities to emphasize the why behind its stories in addition to the what. For example, school administrators should explain why students benefit from trips to the zoo and why the school board adopted a new graduation requirement for a course on study skills.

Simply stating facts does not convince the public that the decision was a wise one. Every story should have a logical connection to some organizational goal.

A website's objectives are more specific than its goals, and they are measurable. These can include research-based suggestions to develop a college selection guide on the website or create an interactive alumni site with a password-protected message board for alumni events. Ali objectives should also relate to the school district's mission and strategic goals.

* Commit the necessary resources.

The school district leadership needs to commit the necessary resources of time and training to maintain and expand a website's offerings. More school districts are adopting content management systems, these allow limited access to certain web pages by designated content providers. This means the football coach would have access to update the web pages about the high school football program and the library media specialist could revise the media center's information on the latest acquisitions or services.

The benefit of content management systems is usually faster updates and more varied content. With a team of contributors, a coordinated and professional approach to content creation and delivery becomes important.

Contributors will need help creating effective content that people will want to read and guidance on how their content relates to the school's goals. Training by public relations practitioners or an outside communication consultant should be offered at regular intervals.

* Actively promote the district's website. Even though your school district audiences spend a lot of time online, you will need to change their information-seeking habits so they return regularly to your website. Promotional ideas to raise awareness include cross-promoting the site with other traditional information devices such as the newsletter and calendar; creating and distributing posters; and placing ads in yearbooks and other school publications.

Explain in these promotions how users can make the district home page their startup page and offer incentives for going to the website, such as contests or unique information offerings only available online.

Effective Qualities

Websites offer certain advantages over traditional media, including relatively low production costs, easy content revisions, limitless content space and, perhaps most important, interactivity. Researchers have determined that several factors build and maintain cyber relationships so users keep coming back. Some of those include:

* Publics served.

Effective public relations programs seek to build relationships with different key publics. A common assumption made by many school district websites is that information needs are the same for every unique public. Not so. Senior citizens, for example, have vastly different information needs compared to teenagers. The Internet allows organizations to easily create "neighborhoods," or special sections aimed at particular interests and informational needs.

The Allen, Texas, Independent School District organized its home page by key publics including visitors, parents, staff and students (see related story, page 26). The Oconomowoc Area School District near Milwaukee, Wis., has a parent section with lunch menu information, school supply lists and health information. Because cyberspace is limitless, organizations can customize special areas that appeal to the group's particular needs, which demonstrates an organization's commitment to communication.

Of the 138 New York state school district websites analyzed by the author, only one acknowledged journalists as a district public. Yet the website is often the first place a reporter turns to for research on an organization.

However, reporters commonly complain that information is hard to find on district sites and that much of the information is unusable because it lacks contact names, phone numbers (including after-business-hours phone numbers because most reporters work at night), dates and source attribution. Some district websites, such as the one maintained in Virginia Beach, Va., have developed news sections that include what is known as online newsrooms with public relations contact information, archived and categorized news releases, backgrounders and downloadable graphics.

* Content variety and freshness.

Most people go to websites for information or entertainment. Schools have a lot of information of interest to particular groups. Parents, for example, want to know more about academic offerings, academic achievements, extracurricular activities and important day-to-day information, such as bus transportation schedules, emergency closings, lunch menus and health requirements for sports. Employees, on the other hand, are interested in benefit options, training opportunities and job support information.

Overlapping information for several key publics can be easily duplicated for the group's section. Organizations need to update information regularly, which requires a commitment of time. Users consider sites with old information (such as last year's academic calendar or last month's sports schedules) unreliable and will go elsewhere for information. Also, to encourage frequent return visits, front pages should contain a "what's new" link that helps demonstrate the site's vitality and currency.

* Navigational features.

User expectations for the Web are growing in direct proportion to users' lack of patience, particularly when it comes to finding information. Sites should be easy to use, which means information should be where users think it should be and page links are viable. Research and site monitoring should be conducted to determine information placement. The same information can easily reside in more than one location, particularly if key public neighborhoods are created.

The two most important navigational features are (1) a "home" button located consistently on each page so users who get lost can easily return to the home page, and (2) an internal search engine for the convenience of users who want to use a keyword search to find specific information on the site.

Other helpful navigational features include a site map, which graphically displays the site's infrastructure at a glance, and limits to how much information appears on every page so a user can see it without scrolling down. (The use of hyperlinks can take users to additional information pages or sites.)

* Interactivity.

The capacity of websites to interact with the user through e-mail, weblogs ("blogs"), electronic bulletin boards, chat rooms and instant messaging is the greatest advantage the web offers over the more traditional mass media.

Superintendent blogs are just now starting to make their appearance on school district websites. Pam Hedgpeth, superintendent of Republic School District in Republic, Mo., started a blog at the end of 2005. Clayton Wilcox, superintendent of Pinellas County Schools in Largo, Fla., blogs for the St. Petersburg Times, instead of his district's website, but he discusses Pinellas happenings with text links to the district.

Organizations have the ability to engage in two-way communication, a major component of effective communication and relationship building. Parents and other community members who work during the day can be frustrated by a busy signal when they try to call a school with questions during normal business hours. A website offering e-mail addresses and other means of interactivity is a logical solution.

My research shows school districts are hesitant to use such features because of concerns about site security, privacy and adequate staffing to respond to online communication. Yet ignoring the interactive possibilities can make a website's communication potential no better than a district newsletter's.

A Higher Priority

School administrators have many good reasons for putting their websites on the back burner: budget shortfalls, lack of time and staff to create and update information, and low audience participation. Most superintendents also feel secure knowing that little or no competition exists.

At the same time, schools striving for excellence in the classroom know they need to attract the best quality teachers and engage families in a learning partnership. Their website could be an important asset to meet those goals. In addition, several recent trends should build the case for increased attention to a school's or a district's website.

* Crisis communication.

Too few school districts use their websites to communicate during a crisis, such as a campus shooting, natural disasters or news media coverage of alleged illegal activities by school employees. Most rely on the local news media to tell their story, which can limit the amount, quality and slant of information delivered to concerned residents.

In fact, a major disconnect develops when school district websites remain unchanged during a crisis. Anyone interested in the shooting tragedy in the Red Lake, Minn., district in March 2005 would not have found the school's website useful throughout the ordeal--even though at least one local news organization created a link to the site. A Red Lake School student killed nine people including five students, a teacher and a guard.

Viewers might wonder how organized and in control of the situation a school district really is if it fails to recognize the crisis on its own website. Education organizations should take the lead from the business world and consider their website an essential component of their crisis planning. School districts should provide important factual information quickly and consistently, including background materials about the school.

Schools with no public relations staff should consider getting outside help. Web hosting companies offer crisis communication modules that can be remotely activated and updated by phone or computer. The result is a properly resourced online crisis response that acts and looks like it is part of the school's own website.

* Decline of traditional news media.

It's no secret that fewer young people are reading a newspaper or watching a TV network news show. Instead, the younger generation is relying more on the Internet for news. This will have potentially serious consequences, especially in crisis communication situations when schools traditionally rely on the local news media to explain what's happening.

* The rise of participatory journalism.

Journalists are no longer the only ones reporting the news. One of the biggest debates in journalism today is defining who is a journalist. With the rise of Internet technology and, in particular, blogs, everyone is a reporter. More and more people are gathering and disseminating news and opinions via a website than ever before. While most of these sites lack the credibility of mainstream media, their influence is growing.

* Demand for information customization.

Not only do people want information at their fingertips 24/7 today, but they want that information customized to their needs. While students are loading their Apple iPods with music, adults are selecting podcasts of all sorts of editorial content for future listening. They also are seeking information that was prepared for their needs, in the style that they enjoy, and when they want to have it.

* Demand for transparency.

The business scandals that exploded onto the front pages of news in 2001 have led to stakeholders' demand for more accountability and transparency of publicly held businesses. Schools are also under greater scrutiny, as in the case of the Roslyn School District on Long Island, which resulted in the theft of more than $11 million in public school funds by employees--the largest school business scandal on record.

* Activism.

The Internet has the ability to grow issues rapidly from anyone with access to the Internet. Schools are probably familiar with rogue student sites that annoy schools with their rants against teachers and principals. However, organized interest groups or even individuals on a mission will increasingly undermine the credibility of and trust in school districts with websites and other Internet-based strategies. Schools should take proactive measures to address their concerns and communicate with strategic publics (including activists) frequently and effectively.

Patricia Swarm is assistant professor of public relations, Utica College, 1600 Burrstone Road, Utica, NY 13502. E-mail: [e-mail]. She has conducted research on school district websites in New York state.

A Sampling of Web Pages

Using a public relations perspective to examine your school district's website could make the difference between a ho-hum site that's largely ignored and one that effectively communicates with its strategic audiences.

School districts should consider segmenting their key publics and designing information "neighborhoods" especially for important audiences, including the news media, parents, students, employees and community residents with no school-age children.

The screen shots here include examples of an online pressroom for journalists and a home page organized by publics and customized information for particular audiences.

Finally, if websites are the virtual public face of a school district, schools will need to include their websites in their crisis communications plans. A screen shot of Red Lake School's home page seemed painfully out of sync with reality after a tragic school shooting. As growing numbers use the Internet to access important and timely information, school districts must prepare for communicating even under the most stressful conditions.

The screen shot (top) from the website of the Virginia Beach City Public Schools (www.vbschools.com/) shows how the district has set up an online newsroom.

This site is maintained by the Allen, Texas, Independent School District (www.allenisd.org/web/index.html) offers an example of a home page (middle) organized by key audiences and with fresh content that keeps visitors returning.

For an example of a school district website that customizes information for parents, check out the site belonging to the Oconomowoc, Wis., Area School District (www.oasd.kl2.wi.us/jahia/jsp/index.jsp].

In some communities, superintendents are now maintaining their own blogs on their school district's website as a way to connect more frequently and informally with constituents. One example can be found on the Republic, Mo., site (www.republic.k12.mo.us/), where Superintendent Pam Hedgpeth started her blog at the end of 2005.

Viewers who saw news of the Red Lake, Minn., Independent School District's fatal shootings by a student in March 2005 never read a word about the tragedy and how the school district was responding on its website (bottom), even though a local news organization created a link to the site (www.paulbunyan.net/rlschools/) at the height of the story.

--Patricia Swann

Facilitating e-communities for leaders.

BY ESTELLE KAMLER

The life of the school district administrator is a balancing act today. New mandates, demographic changes, technology reforms and financial pressures are just a few of the challenges. Administrators welcome support from colleagues as they address the myriad of tasks on their overflowing agendas.

For school leaders on New York's Long Island, an electronic forum known as the LISTSERV has brought a measure of relief by providing administrators at the central-office and building levels with easy access to important federal, state and local school news and a quick connection to collegial experts.

The LISTSERV was conceived and implemented by Mike Keany, director of the Long Island School Leadership Center, to support administrators in the 120 school districts across Nassau and Suffolk counties. To address the demands on these school and district leaders, Keany developed 37 electronic forums that allow practicing administrators differentiated by job title (superintendent, assistant superintendent, elementary principal, high school principal, math department chair, etc.) and some additional special-interest communities, such as aspiring administrators, to interact with others in similar groups.

With a growing enrollment of nearly 5,000 participants--some choosing to subscribe to multiple lists--these electronic forums have become a daily instructive foray into the lives of veteran and novice administrators. Through e-mail, participants are exposed to the most current information and advice on key educational issues. They are encouraged to reflect on their own values and beliefs and invited to offer perspectives on existing administrative issues and exchange possible solutions with one another.

Learning Components

For each electronic forum, Keany posts one to five e-mail messages daily. His contributions relate to the following professional learning components, though not all are featured on each forum:

* Book of the Week: A short summary of a new title on education or leadership, along with pertinent bibliographic information.

* Current Issues: Excerpts from online sites and periodicals are posted to keep members informed about leadership, trends and hot topics.

* Distinguished Practitioner Online: An interactive discussion in which participants ask questions of a prominent administrator. Superintendents, professors of education, administrators in the New York State Education Department, veteran principals and departmental leaders have shared experiences, provided insights into new mandates and offered advice.

* So How Would You Handle This?: Interactive case studies that are designed to engage members in online problem solving and reflection about real school situations.

* So Tell Me What You Know About ... ?: Posting of research articles with provocative questions. Topics include social promotion, culturally diverse classrooms and gifted education.

* Here Come the Jobs: A bulletin board to share job openings.

* Seminars, Conferences, Workshops: Regional and state professional development offerings are listed.

This year Keany added a community forum hosted by the Digital Divide Network. Reminiscent of a town square, participants from the different forums interact with each other, post surveys, publish articles and initiate blogs.

Immediate Assistance

When a LISTSERV participant is wrestling with a difficult question, he or she can turn to colleagues electronically for answers. Many questions will yield up to a dozen responses and provide leads to other resources. Recently an anxious superintendent received rather quick relief when his posting about the need for a Mandarin interpreter for an unexpected parent meeting was answered within minutes. Others received recommendations for a top-flight educational consultant, services for refurbishing football helmets and names of good Manhattan French restaurants for a second-language class trip.

The assistant superintendents' forum, which has 173 participants, has been an especially active e-community due to changing federal and state mandates that affect student assessment and instructional programs. In January, colleagues shared dilemmas about scoring different state assessments. Participants clarified the coding process, supplied the timetable for completion and reviewed staff training models, saving their administrative colleagues in other districts valuable time and providing reassurance they were proceeding correctly.

Another concern that generated extensive e-mail traffic centered on the distinction between Advanced Placement and honors courses. Several school leaders summarized their districts' offerings, suggested websites and journals for more details and provided phone numbers for personal contact to further the conversations.

Participating administrators are finding great professional benefits in the immediacy of the LISTSERV. One assistant superintendent said: "The LISTSERV is our 'Cliff Notes' for a busy central-office world. Mike sifts through the many conferences, professional materials, NCLB regulations and [State Education Department] notices and brings to our attention what is of high priority or what will give us the greatest leverage for improving student outcomes"

The electronic forums are hosted on Nassau County BOCES computer server. They are funded by a special state legislative grant sponsored by Sen. Carl Marcellino.

Estelle Kamler is associate professor of educational leadership and administration at Long Island University, C. W. Post campus, 720 Northern Blvd., Brookville, NY 11548. E-mail: [e-mail]