Pittsburg Community Schools

Partnering with Finalsite, Seals got to work. She felt it was critical for families to be able to access the site during the summer, prior to the start of the new school year. When students, parents, or guardians needed to find supply lists, lunch menus, bus routes, or to enroll a new student, they'd be greeted with a new site and a better user experience.

But with seven sites to launch for the district in just three months, Seals was feeling the pressure. "I think I probably chose the most challenging road!" Supported by a dedicated project manager throughout the redesign and launch, Seals began the process of migrating content from the old site to the new one, designed and powered by Finalsite.

"I was given a person —  an actual human — that was mine and there to help me," Seals laughed. "She gave me great guidance through the design process, and she walked me through a strategy to hit a reasonable deadline. Every Finalsite employee I've encountered is really excited to be doing this work. They're excited to see new ideas; they're excited to bring solutions to problems. I have not once been met with 'we can't do that' — not once, and I think that's really incredible."

Seals was also impressed with the project management system used to track the deployment process. "I was given this whole system to help organize the process with milestones and benchmarks — I realized I'm not going to put a whole site together by myself."

Knowing that the website content and navigation were in need of a major overhaul, access to the old site's content granted Seals the chance to strategically migrate the site's information — but not a 1:1 copy. "There was a lot of content that was repurposed and a lot that needed to be cut," Seals added. "I originally felt like everything needed to stay, but eventually re-categorized everything because I realized it was cluttered and messy."

"I wouldn't call myself an expert by any means, but I've built a few sites in my day, and the old system was pretty rudimentary," Seals said. "It's not underdeveloped, but it's limited. Previously, every time I wanted to do something, it wasn't something they had the power to do, and it turned into a special development request."

Seals jumped right in and was quickly impressed by the built-in capabilities of Finalsite's content management system, Composer. "It felt very intuitive to me. Every time I would go to do something, it would work! Before, I felt like I was working for our vendor, and I feel like Finalsite is working for me, and I think that that has been such a huge shift. From the beginning, there was quite a difference between how Finalsite approached the process, and that really stood out to me."

Since the site's redesign and launch, Pittsburg Community Schools has found new confidence, and with a solid foundation in place, Seals and the school community are excited to see the site continue to grow.

Wanting to provide equal visibility to all schools within a district can be a challenging task. Pittsburg schools does this seamlessly right on their homepage by highlighting each of the six schools in the district with big bright photographs that feature not only students and staff members at each school but also the uniqueness and welcoming community.

Additionally, including the most critical information (students, staff, parents, portal login, and a search component) in the top sticky navigation bar ensures that users quickly find the information they are looking for.

Making lunch menus as easily accessible as possible to parents and caregivers was one big goal for Seals and her website redesign — after all, it was one of the most searched for pages on the site! Using Finalsite’s Calendar module, the district is able to publish and share information from one convenient location seamlessly. Users are able to download printable versions of the menu, pay for food service, submit a free & reduced meal application, and subscribe to calendars to receive notifications on any upcoming changes.

District news sections can often become dumping grounds for information and, without consistent updating, can quickly become overloaded with out-of-date information. Pittsburg does a fantastic job of organizing and branding their news section, keeping the colors and graphics consistent while allowing enough padding and white space between sections, so it doesn't feel overly crowded or overwhelming.

"The migration was a heavy lift, but it was an exciting move for us," Seals shared. "I think we were past due, and people were waiting for this. Change can be scary, and it was a lot of work, but I think it's a unique moment because, for us, we were ready."

When browsing the site, Seals hopes users gain a sense of what the district is like. "When you walk into one of our buildings, it's not a boring experience," Seals said. "It's high-fives from awesome kids; it's high school students doing something out of this world — that is your experience when you come to our school buildings, and I really wanted users to feel that."

"I think part of that trust building has been my ability to confidently say that our community loves the new site. I knew they would love it. I knew that Finalsite would come through for me."