Builders :: RailsBridge.org

Keeping lists of PTA members, classroom lists, lists of people who are working on various volunteer projects and committees on separate people's computers in spreadsheets and text files. This is a group of parents working with a dedicated principal and teachers to create an outstanding public school from an underperforming, rundown school 7 years ago.

At minimum they need a database of everyone in the school (which is collected via room parents and PTA membership since we can't get any information from the district) and there would need to be some flags for whether people are willing to share contact info with just the classroom, just the PTA board and committee chairs, or anyone in the school. At maximum, it could be a real resource for organizing parents and a catalyst for increasing involvement through grade-level and class-room info pages, as well as a shared place to record all the background information about how an ever-changing group of 10-30 people runs dozens of activities and programs throughout the school year from an outdoor science program that takes place in gardens that were planted and are maintained by parent volunteers to a technology program that teaches narrative development through claymation to 2nd and 3rd graders. More details: Must have: 1. front page w/ integrated calendar, plus links to pages for info about the school, links to current and past issues of the newsletter, etc. 2. Different login levels with access to different resources: parent, teacher, staff, PTA member, PTA board member, etc. 3. Directories of people, organized in several ways: a. by classroom. Room parents would enter the names of parents and children here. They and the PTA board would be the only ones with access to the lists. b. PTA committee membership/chairmanship and history c. by offered skills This directory will require that parents/guardians can have multiple roles, and be linked via child(ren) to their family info. Note: there are many “non-traditional” family arrangements, so this will have to be flexible. Directories should be exportable or cut/pastable to, for example, the to: field of an email application. Directories should be easy to “roll over” into new school year. 4. Privacy flags to control release of information as requested by parent. These should be respected throughout entire site and help prevent incorrect publication of parents info. 5. straightforward procedure to update content or make small modifications to web site. 6. Solid backup/restore. Would like to have: 1. Distinct log in for each parent, teacher, staff or PTA member (note: important to have multiple email addresses per child to include active grandparents) 2. a wiki that is private to the school community 3. a central place to post fliers (both public and private to the school community) – 4. Shared file repository for collection of documents that are used by PTA and classrooms (These are event fliers etc...) 5. private photo sharing (parent specifies to share with classroom, yearbook, school) with notification of new photos (which people could opt out of) 6. internal news page (blog format, private to the school community) 7. Secured parts of the site to PTA board members where they can share internal documents and discussions, similar to Google groups. 8. Ability to receive automatic donation payments directly through web site. 9. Some way to communicate and organize volunteer opportunities to parents. 10. A place to display children's work. Nice to have: 1. Online Forums and discussion areas 2. import lifetouch photos (for student identification, these would be considered private data and parents would need to have a way to opt out)