The National School Boards Association held its 2019 Annual Conference and Exposition from March 30 to April 1, 2019, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. In the exhibit hall, SchoolPresser, the WordPress for Schools platform co-founded by our founder Brian Messenlehner, set up a booth to meet school board members and district leaders.
A different kind of audience
WordCamps are full of people who already love WordPress. NSBA is full of people who decide how school districts spend their money. Board members and superintendents do not usually ask which CMS their district runs on. They ask what it costs, whether it is accessible, whether it is secure, and whether staff can actually use it.
That made the booth conversations valuable. They were about budgets and outcomes, not plugins.
The case for WordPress in schools
The SchoolPresser pitch built on years of district work and on the WordPress in Schools panel Brian joined at WordCamp Philly in 2015, just a few blocks away:
- No license fees for the software itself, because WordPress is open source.
- One platform for the district and every school, using WordPress Multisite with shared design.
- Staff friendly editing so principals, teachers and coaches can update their own pages.
- Content migration scripts for moving off the leading hosted school website vendors.
- Ownership. The district owns its content and can change vendors without starting over.
Real districts
SchoolPresser has worked with districts including Newark Public Schools, where parent and child themes let individual school sites inherit the district design, plus Delavan-Darien School District and Southside ISD. Example SchoolPresser sites have included Belmar, Roselle and Fremont Unified, among others.
Accessibility comes standard
Schools have legal and moral obligations to make their websites usable by everyone. On every AlphaWeb education build, accessibility is part of the work from the first template, not a separate product. That includes semantic markup, color contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text guidance for staff and accessible document practices.
Where AlphaWeb fits
AlphaWeb carries this school district experience into every education project. We plan district wide migrations, build Multisite networks with consistent templates, train staff, and provide hosting and support afterward, including hosting built for government and public entities.
If your district is weighing a move away from a hosted school website vendor, AlphaWeb would be glad to walk you through how the switch to WordPress works.
At a glance
- Event: NSBA 2019 Annual Conference and Exposition
- Dates: March 30 to April 1, 2019
- Venue: Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia
- Presence: SchoolPresser booth in the exhibit hall
Related: NSBA 2018: SchoolPresser Brings WordPress for Schools to San Antonio, WordCamp Philly 2015: The WordPress in Schools Panel, WordPress for School Districts: Lessons from Migrating Newark Public Schools and Section 508, WCAG and WordPress: A Field Guide for Government and Military Sites.
Have a question about this event or a project like the ones mentioned here? Reach out to AlphaWeb and Brian will be glad to talk it through. We are always happy to compare notes on WordPress, mobile apps and migrations.
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