The address is the same, at www.ballard.kyschools.us, but the redesigned site now has a searchable event calendar and staff directory, a news archive, and front-page access for parents to the district’s Infinite Campus student data system. The redesign was done by eSchoolView, a national company specializing in school websites.
“Everything has been overhauled. Our whole focus was to make everything better-organized and more user-friendly,” said Julie Thomas, community education and PR director for the district. “As we reorganized the site, we used the ‘two clicks’ rule – meaning that we tried to keep any information a user might want within two mouse-clicks of opening the page.”
The website is much more functional, and offers a number of services that were unavailable before, Thomas said. Using eSchoolView’s software, site administrators can make changes from any Internet connection, and can post unlimited photos and videos. Printable versions of photos and stories are available to users, and calendar entries can be shared directly to users’ Outlook and other calendars.
Both the calendar and staff directory may be searched by school; the calendar also may be searched for athletic events. Users may notice that most of what’s on the calendar right now is basketball games, Thomas said, with some Christmas events thrown in the mix.
“Other events will be added over time, just like other content,” she explained. “We think it looks great, and is a real improvement over the old site, but it’s still very much a work-in-progress. New content is being added every day, both on the district pages and the individual school’s pages.”
Most pages have two windows, with the main body devoted to articles, photos or other information. A smaller window on the right of the page may contain links to additional resources, or documents that can be downloaded.
Thomas asked that if anyone found a broken link, or was looking for information he/she couldn’t find, to please contact her at Julie.thomas@ballard.kyschools.us, or call 665-8400, ext. 2011.
