Wanting a website more appealing and easier to use, and to more effectively communicate with the community, Wawasee Community School Corporation launched a revamped site the evening of Feb. 26. The new URL for the website is wawaseeschools.org, though it can still be accessed by typing in wawasee.k12.in.us.

Dave Van Lue, director of technology for the school corporation, said visual appeal and more effective communication were key reasons for the site update that went live ahead of schedule by about one week, which did cause a few errors that have been fixed.

“The main reason to make these changes is to do a better job of communicating with the community and families interested in taking a look at our school corporation,” he said. “It has the same basic information as our previous site did, but it is presented in a more appealing way. It will have a lot of pictures and some short videos in the future to showcase Wawasee schools to our community and prospective families who are looking for a school system for their children.

“We want to make sure we are showcasing all of the programs and opportunities that students have at Wawasee Community Schools.”

Van Lue noted the previous website was “a content management site” where different people were responsible to update and edit pages. As time went by, pages became less and less similar and more cluttered. “Now we will send updates to the company to add to the site so that everything is kept consistent, easy to find and eye appealing,” he said. “At this time, we do not plan on changing the individual school pages; they will remain on the current server. It is just the corporation site that we have moved to this newer format.”

KidderCo developed the design for the website, the same company producing the school corporation newsletters mailed out to families three times each year. Several staff members had input to make changes to the original designs of the website. “KidderCo is a marketing agency and we felt they had an expertise in this area we did not have,” Van Lue said.

Wawasee plans to release a school corporation app for iOS and Android mobile devices this summer that can be downloaded for free. The app will give access to content on Web pages such as calendars, schedules, directories, maps, sports information, announcements and more.