Highline Public Schools

School District Serving Over 18,000 Students in Washington State

Mobile Highline School Screenshot

With more than 18,000 students and 32 schools, Highline Public Schools in Burien, Washington has a large community of parents, teachers and stakeholders that expect up-to-the-minute updates from the forward-thinking district. After a long selection process, the district chose Finalsite as its website provider, and the result sets a new standard for districts across the country.

Highline's new, custom website addresses all of its communities needs with functional design elements, including: 

  • A quicklinks to offer direct access to key pages
  • A searchable staff directory
  • An advanced search feature to ensure families can find what they need 
  • Easy-to-update news, events, and calendars

FEATURED DESIGN ELEMENT

highline public schools advanced search and navigation

Advanced Search & School Navigation

The interactive search element, found at the top right of the site's navigation, lets users search the site or search for a staff member. It also shows popular pages that visitors may be looking for. The school tab on the main navigation is also shown here — Highline organizes the schools by category to make it easier for visitors to find their respective schools. 

What's more, behind the scenes, site administrators can see detailed stats of search queries, allowing them to tailor results. They can even set up "synonym" mapping to assist users even more with prescribed matching that brings up relevant links. 

FEATURED DESIGN ELEMENT

staff directory highline public schools

Staff Directory 

It's easy for parents to find and contact who they are looking for — even with over 2,000 people employed by the district! The Highline directory can be searched by keyword, first or last name, as well as filtered by department. 

FEATURED DESIGN ELEMENT

Highline Public School homepage screenshot

Quicklinks

Interactive buttons on the homepage provide easy access to the most popular resources — lunch menus, bus routes, and grade reports. Icons are especially helpful for Highline's communications because the district serves a diverse community that speaks many different languages.

FEATURED DESIGN ELEMENT

highline school district homepage screenshot

Interactive Infographics

On hover, the circular infographics switch from icons to short descriptions of the five district goals. Similarly, each box in the "Highline At A Glance" section provides more detail about each fact — viewers can skim through and learn about the district right from the homepage, without ever having to click through to each linked page. 

FEATURED DESIGN ELEMENT

highline public school district homepagescreenshot

School Pages

Each of the 33 schools has its own designated color brand, but the overall design is consistent across the district. Shown here, Evergreen High School's homepage has its own mission statement and related photography. Individual schools can be given control over their navigation and all of their site content, simplifying district-wide management and saving time for everyone. School-specific social media content is also displayed on these pages with Finalsite Feeds.  

FEATURED DESIGN ELEMENT

Events & News 

Because of Composer’s Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) functionality, Highline's homepage can dynamically pull News and Events from individual schools onto its homepage to give current and prospective families a district overview.

FEATURED SOFTWARE ELEMENT

highline public schools calendar screenshot

Calendar

For a deeper look at district events, visitors can view Highline's calendar page, and utilize the filter and search functions. Likewise, each school can also control their own calendar of events, allowing for aggregate views of all events or just those specific to the school. 

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