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Schenectady School District Overhauls Website, Mobile App

The new website allows users to translate material into nearly a dozen languages, sign up to receive push notifications for whatever school their child belongs to, and navigate even with limited hearing or vision.

Website accessibility
(TNS) — The Schenectady City School District is getting a virtual facelift.

The district will be launching a new website and mobile app on Wednesday that officials believe will be easier to navigate and streamline communication with parents.

"This is one of the things that when I got here in July, people gave me immediate feedback on," said Superintendent Anibal Soler Jr. "They said, 'You need to do something about our website, mister. It's not friendly, it's hard to find information."

District officials spent months designing the website and mobile app, which is "everything Schenectady school in your pocket," according to Karen Corona, the district's director of communication and public information.

The new website allows users to translate material into nearly a dozen languages, including Spanish, Hindi and Arabic, with a few clicks, and is ADA compliant, allowing those who are hard of hearing and limited vision to navigate the site with ease.

The district, where more than 20 different languages are spoken, is hoping to add additional languages when the website is rolled out, Corona said.

Each school in the district will have its own homepage that will eventually be populated with information from administrators of each building. District-wide information will also be available for viewing under a "live feed" located on the district's home page.

In addition, the district's clunky URL (schenectady.k12.ny.us) will be replaced with one that is easier to remember: schenectadyschools.org.

"We're super excited about that," Corona said.

The app will be available to download with the App Store and Google Play store by searching " Schenectady City Schools."

Similar to the website, the app is easily translatable and broken into different sections for each school.

Users will be able to sign up to receive push notifications for whatever school their child belongs to, and can receive notifications from multiple schools if they choose — a feature that Soler believes will help bolster communication.

"We know that some people don't like those robocalls anymore, but they'll accept text messages and push notifications, he said.

Set up costs for the website and app will run the district website and app cost the district $52,300 for the first year and $34,000 annually after. But The district will receive an 80% reimbursement through BOCES, bringing the total costs down to $10,460 for the first year and just $6,800 annually after, according to Corona.

Soler added that the new website aligns with the district's diversity, equity and inclusion policy adopted earlier this year but also shows that the district is open to feedback from stakeholders.

"We really took the feedback not only from our DEI policy about being inclusive, but also feedback from the community, feedback from parents," he said.

©2022 The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, N.Y. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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