Bentonville Schools Website Getting New Look

Bentonville’s School District officials have been working to redesign and improve the district’s website.
Bentonville’s School District officials have been working to redesign and improve the district’s website.

BENTONVILLE -- The School District's website is getting a makeover.

District officials told the School Board last week they hope to have the redesigned website go live by Aug. 1.

At A Glance

Mobile App

Andy Mayes, Bentonville School District’s technology director, said the district is rolling out a new mobile app called K-12 Central that should be available to parents by August. Parents will be able to access information such as grades, attendance, school news and lunch balances through the app, which will be integrated with the district’s website.

Source: Staff Report

The website as it is now is "pretty generic and not very engaging," said David Adair, founder of Adair Creative, a Bentonville firm the district chose to do the redesign.

"It doesn't really introduce the district and community in any meaningful way," Adair said.

Mary Ley, district communications director, said the website isn't what she wants it to be aesthetically.

"I want people to click on it and say, 'Wow, that's the district I want to be in,'" Ley said. "The people who contact us the most are actually people Walmart is recruiting to come here and most aren't even in our country. And the first thing they do is go to our site."

Finding someone to take on the redesign job was a challenge. The district's website runs through Edline, which puts some limits on what can be done.

"We have had many people come and in and when they saw the intricacy of our infrastructure they didn't even want to touch it," Ley said.

Adair began to talk with the district about the project about a month ago, he said. He has had conversations with Edline to better understand what he could and couldn't do with the design.

"Edline is a good system, it does what you need it to do in terms of having a districtwide web presence starting with the district and going down to all the schools and even the teacher sites," Adair said. "But with that we basically have to play within the rules given to us for design. They have some very specific rules."

Adair Creative has been in business for seven years. Its clients include Walmart, John Brown University and the Amazeum.

A rough draft of the new website was shown at last week's board meeting. It showed the district's logo and motto at the top with a major graphic just below that where important news will be displayed. Just below that were three smaller graphics for more news.

Scrolling down, the website has another major graphic, this one having to do with the community. The example provided showed off the district's Community Partnership program with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. It's tentatively titled "Bentonville's Community."

Grant Lightle, a board member, suggested changing the title to "Our Community."

"We have to think more expansively about the entire district," Lightle said. "That's something we really have to get past, is people constantly focusing on this being a municipal district."

Bella Vista, Cave Springs, Centerton, Highfill and Rogers are other cities that fall at least partially within the Bentonville School District.

Also being added to the homepage is a feature that introduces patrons to a particular principal or staff member in order to give it a personal touch, Adair said.

A search engine also will be part of the new website, something the website doesn't have now.

Michael Poore, superintendent, said the district has seen "dramatic progress" in terms of communication with the public since he and Ley arrived in 2011.

"But we're not satisfied with that. We'd like to make it even better," Poore said. "We shopped around quite a bit to find individuals with talent who can take us to another level."

NW News on 06/09/2014

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