Three York Co. school districts launch new websites

Three York County school districts are rolling out new or updated websites as the school year gears up to better inform families and the community.

The Fort Mill school district launched a new website in July and Rock Hill schools plan a site launch on Monday. Clover plans to launch a website redesign around the time school opens in August.

Rock Hill, York and Clover schools also have free mobile apps, which enable users to access information and sign up for notifications via mobile devices. Fort Mill plans to develop a mobile app.

The new websites are responsive to mobile devices, meaning the size adjusts to whatever platform is being used to view the site: smart phones and tablets as well as laptops and desktops.

Mychal Frost, communication director with the Rock Hill school district, said Rock Hill’s new site is loaded with images, “both on the home page as well as through the sub pages.”

Frost said the site, offered through Blackboard, an education communications company, also has the capability to play video without using other sites such as YouTube.

“The old site, by its nature and being nine years old, things were stored in places they didn’t need to be and it created difficulty for people to find things,” Frost said. “We hope we’ve created a site that’s cleaner and enables visitors to find the information they are seeking.”

Frost said the Rock Hill district is exploring the possibility of online student registration in the coming year, which would be a component of the website.

Kelly McKinney, media and communications officer with Fort Mill schools, said information is still being loaded onto the new site, offered through another company, School Messenger.

“We want this to be a real resource for parents, to be able to find information not only about the school district, but curriculum, state standards, calendar information, our story,” she said.

McKinney said Fort Mill chose to use School Messenger because it is already using that company for its mass communication system and it wanted to take advantage of synergy.

“For us, this is going to be the perfect foundation and platform for us to launch an app under School Messenger, for parents to be able to quickly access from their phone,” she said.

The school websites act as portals for parents to access other sites where they can pay fees. McKinney said Fort Mill schools have been doing new student registration and student reenrollment online, via a link to a registration area.

New students and their parents can enter their personal information, McKinney said, but they still need to visit a school location to provide the documentation to show residency.

The re-enrollment process is entirely online, she said.

Bryan Dillon, spokesman for the Clover school district, said Clover is working to launch later in August an updated, redesigned web site that will be responsive on mobile platforms.

“All the things that are on our current web site are still going to be there, it’s just going to be a little different presentation,” Dillon said.

He said one goal is to make it easy to find information that may be of interest not only to parents, but to community members who don’t have children in schools.

“We want to better allow people to find the information that’s specified for them, whether they’re there as a grandparent, parent or a business owner,” Dillon said.

This story was originally published July 30, 2016 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Three York Co. school districts launch new websites."