In our recent study “What Parents Want,” we learned that parents prefer their school or district websites to all other school communication channels. This confirmed what we’ve known for a long time: Your website needs to be an easy-to-use, up-to-date resource for your community. But are districts succeeding in that goal? And if not, how could they grow?
In 2022, the SchoolCEO research team set out to answer those questions by analyzing 700 randomly selected district websites, examining what information they included and—just as importantly—what they didn’t. For our analysis, we focused solely on homepages and what could be accessed from them in just one click. After all, the homepage is the launching point for almost all of a website’s visitors—and those visitors will likely infer a district’s priorities from what information is linked on their homepage. Here, we’ll highlight the key takeaways from that study.
Less than half of district homepages linked to services they provide their communities.
School districts often fill a variety of social services for their communities, extending far beyond academics. They operate as community centers, food pantries and event spaces; they provide guidance, support and safety to those in need. It’s no wonder that even in the face of declining trust in public education nationally, most people still have favorable opinions about their own local schools.
So we were surprised to find that only 41% of the district homepages in our sample linked to information about the services their schools provide to their communities. If you aren’t using your district’s homepage to highlight the relationships you’ve built and the services you provide, you’re missing opportunities to connect your community to important resources—and to your schools.
Most district homepages linked to career information—but that information was often insufficient.
We know from our 2023 research “What Teachers Want” that most educators looked at district websites before applying to their current positions. So we were glad to find that 76% of school districts provided information about available careers—or at least referred to open positions—on their homepages. However, only 15% included information on how to apply, benefits or reasons to apply.
Of course, when teachers search for information about available careers, they’re looking for more than just a job posting. In “What Teachers Want,” educators ranked geographical location, school culture and school leadership as the top three most important factors they considered when deciding whether to apply to a district. What makes your area a great place to live, work and play? What makes your school culture special? How do district leaders support and appreciate their staff members? Prospective employees are asking these questions when they come to your website, and they should be able to find the answers—just a click away from your homepage.
Very few districts addressed accessibility on their homepages.
When the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, was passed in 1990, “digital accessibility” wasn’t yet a concern; after all, the digital world as we know it today had barely begun to exist. But in the decades since, technology has become an integral part of everyday school life—and with it has come considerable accessibility challenges. But surprisingly, only 29% of the school districts we analyzed referred to accessibility on their homepages.
While not required by law, it’s a best practice to clearly link your accessibility policy from your website’s homepage. Without it, you miss the opportunity to receive feedback on your website’s accessibility—and even risk alienating your district’s disabled students, parents or community members. This policy should affirm your commitment to providing access to all students, delineate the accessibility standards you adhere to, and outline a procedure for users to report any accessibility issues.
We also recommend including a form where community members and students can easily report any issues they come across. If you make it easy for stakeholders to bring your attention to accessibility concerns, you’ll be more able to address those concerns—and they’ll be less likely to escalate to an Office of Civil Rights complaint.
What does this mean for you?
It would be easy to assume that a school district’s homepage is indicative of its priorities. In fact, that’s an assumption your stakeholders are likely to make, whether they’re community members or prospective employees. But if that’s the case, community services, recruitment and accessibility aren’t particularly important to a majority of the districts we analyzed—and we know that’s just not true.
So ask yourself: Is your district homepage a good reflection of your priorities? Can visitors to your website easily find the information you most want them to have? The items we addressed here are probably among your priorities, but there may be others as well, from safety and security to enrollment. Whatever your stakeholders most need to know, make sure that information is at their fingertips—just a click away.