Meryl's Notes Blog
Things wordy, geeky, and webbyPTA Web Site
Thursday, July 7th, 2005 at 7:01 PM | 3 commentsI am the Web Coordinator for the PTA at my daughter’s new school and we want to establish a new site. I am debating whether to create a Web site using a CMS / blogging tool or to create an old-fashioned Web site with no CMS.
The reason I’m considering a CMS / blog tool is to make it easy to maintain. Maintenance is the key. I might have help from other parents who wouldn’t know what CSS is. Considering my schedule, creating the design and getting it up needs to be simple. I’d probably use an existing CSS template and modify it to fit what we need. Maybe I should explore the apps at opensourcecms.com.
Too busy… too busy. Decisions… decisions. Breathe… breathe.
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3 comments
I’d go with a CMS/blog tools, personally. From my experience, WordPress makes a pretty good CMS for medium-complex (1-2 levels of pages) sites that have a need for lots of little “newsy” bits, and Lucid — http://www.lucidcms.org/ — is good for more static sites. I keep hearing good things about Mambo, but I haven’t had a project that needed that level of complexity thus far.
Ease of maintenance really is key for those sorts of community sites, esp. when you know that you won’t always be involved, or might someday want to do something besides the website.
I used Lucid in a redesign of my neighborhood association’s site — http://www.eastside-olympia.org/ — and I’ve been reasonably happy with it.
I’ve just moved to a new city with my two children. One of my kids is in Kindergarten but I’m already wanting to get as involved as possible with school functions and her education. The school has no PTA website and I found your blog while looking for information on how to put a pta web site together. I’d like to have something created that will allow teachers and parents to communicate openly through the internet as well as have progress reports posted online for any parents wanting to monitor their child’s progress. If I can find some tools that allow me to do with without to much trouble I think the school would love this.
Designing a pta web site can be exciting. With the internet more parents are able to get involved as it’s quick, easy, and doesn’t require leaving the house. I think you should use as much technology as budget and time allows all the while keeping the user interface simple for those parents who may not be as savvy as you are.
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