West Orange School District Offers New, Fresh Website

The West Orange School District has launched its new website just in time for the start of the school year.  

The home screen features a more vibrant, navigable and organized layout, said Fil Santiago, the director of technology in the district, as well as a slide show of students in the district. 

“This is a much better design,” said Santiago. “It’s definitely more user-friendly.” 

See the new district layout by clicking here.  

The home screen still features familiar items, such as events, announcements featured news, and links to schools and district departments. In addition, there are new links for employment opportunities, and to access the district’s Facebook and Twitter profiles. 

One of the best features of the new site is the district calendar, said Santiago. Parents and students can still access it directly from the homepage, but users can now filter scheduled events for specific schools or district events. Instead of being overwhelmed with calendar listings from each of the 11 schools, users can select and see only the ones they want. 

There are calendars specifically for athletics and facilities, too. 

“[The separate calendars] makes it much easier in terms of sharing information and looking at events going on in the district,” said Santiago. 

Santiago also said that the new website represents the character of the district. 

“Perhaps someone is considering moving to West Orange,” said Santiago. “They will get a good feel about what the district does with respect to academics and sports by simply looking at all the information on the website.

“The images,” he added, “also reflect who we are as a community.” 

The website cost about $4,800. Santiago said that the district is minimizing costs by doing much of the work in-house, such as asking teachers to move their classroom information from the previous website to the new one. 

While some links will bring users to the old website, that will only continue for about three months until all of the information can be migrated onto the new website.