Web Site Redesign for Ross Park PTO

The Ross Park PTO is a parent-teacher organization at an elementary school in West Michigan. Stan's been on the board there since 2008, and Barb volunteers for the PTO as well.

The PTO had no Web site when Stan suggested one.

The PTO had three main goals for a Web site:

• Simple navigation and straightforward design.
• Easy and obvious ways to contact the board.
• Encouraging parents to get involved.

We met the PTO's goals by:

• Providing large, prominent navigation links, consistently located on every page.
• Establishing standard email addresses for contacting the board, so addresses don't change when officers change, plus photos on the contact page so officers could be recognized more widely at school.
• Highlighting fun events and ways to help on the home page.

We exceeded the PTO's goals by:

• Including an easy-to-update calendar, with upcoming events on the home page and a full navigable calendar view.
• Improving continuity with a central storehouse for PTO documents, accessible only to the board.
• Automatically linking to the latest newsletter as soon as it's uploaded, simplifying maintenance of both the PTO's site and the school district's site.