NewsUpper SchoolStudent LifeFaculty/StaffPre-K to 8ServiceAcademics
Web woven into fabric of School
Jan 22, 2002 8:00 AM
By Stefan Eady - Faculty
Admission, master calendar, event registration, and nearly every aspect of student life, such as grades, School news, assignments, course work, and research—the School’s Web site has become such an integral part of School life that everyone associated with Darlington needs to have www.darlingtonschool.org at their fingertips.
Eighty-five percent of all student inquiries come via the Web, according to admission reports. Acceptances of students who first inquired about admission through the School’s site are six times greater this school year than three years ago, from 12 accepted in 1998-99 to 77 in 2001-02.
Visits to the Web have doubled each year since it started in 1997. “The main focus of the School’s new marketing campaign, TheJourneyBegins.org, is to draw prospective students and parents to the Web,” Stefan Eady, director of Web development, said in a recent presentation to the Board of Trustees.
Beyond admission, current students and parents visit the Web as much as several times daily to check out news and the master calendar, as well as to visit the School’s Intranet where vital information about each student can be viewed after entering in a confidential family Web code. Parents and students can track schedules, grades, averages, teacher and adviser comments, attendance, assignments, conduct, and permanent academic records.
“Seventy-five percent of our teachers use the online gradebook,” Eady says. “The teachers using it tell us that it actually saves them time. It is basically the same process as they have always used for recording their grades, but now they are entering them directly into the School’s database via the online gradebook, which gives the School a wealth of information about its students.”
Potential developments include an online application process for admission that will allow applicants to log in to a secure area, save answers so that applicants can work on the application over time, and then send the completed form to the School online. Much of registration for the 2002-03 school year will be able to be completed online as well.
Soon, Eady hopes to be able to offer the School’s constituents the opportunity to customize the information they view online so that they are viewing areas of most interest and importance to them. More groups, such as the Board of Trustees, will have secure Intranet sites so that they can post information specifically of interest to them.
“We are also planning to introduce “darE-News” in the near future, which will consist of regular e-mails to our constituents with important news about the School,” Eady says.
Eighty-five percent of all student inquiries come via the Web, according to admission reports. Acceptances of students who first inquired about admission through the School’s site are six times greater this school year than three years ago, from 12 accepted in 1998-99 to 77 in 2001-02.
Visits to the Web have doubled each year since it started in 1997. “The main focus of the School’s new marketing campaign, TheJourneyBegins.org, is to draw prospective students and parents to the Web,” Stefan Eady, director of Web development, said in a recent presentation to the Board of Trustees.
Beyond admission, current students and parents visit the Web as much as several times daily to check out news and the master calendar, as well as to visit the School’s Intranet where vital information about each student can be viewed after entering in a confidential family Web code. Parents and students can track schedules, grades, averages, teacher and adviser comments, attendance, assignments, conduct, and permanent academic records.
“Seventy-five percent of our teachers use the online gradebook,” Eady says. “The teachers using it tell us that it actually saves them time. It is basically the same process as they have always used for recording their grades, but now they are entering them directly into the School’s database via the online gradebook, which gives the School a wealth of information about its students.”
Potential developments include an online application process for admission that will allow applicants to log in to a secure area, save answers so that applicants can work on the application over time, and then send the completed form to the School online. Much of registration for the 2002-03 school year will be able to be completed online as well.
Soon, Eady hopes to be able to offer the School’s constituents the opportunity to customize the information they view online so that they are viewing areas of most interest and importance to them. More groups, such as the Board of Trustees, will have secure Intranet sites so that they can post information specifically of interest to them.
“We are also planning to introduce “darE-News” in the near future, which will consist of regular e-mails to our constituents with important news about the School,” Eady says.
