With a daunting mission of providing information to parents, educators, students and prospective students of the 15 Hartford-area magnet schools, the Capitol Region Education Council needed an effective, easy-to-use, accessible website.
Hartford-based communications design firm Fathom redesigned its website, allowing CREC to better highlight the unique factors of each school and provide families with the necessary information to choose the school that is right for their child.
CREC’s re-designed website has earned it the Hartford Business Journal’s runner up award for “Best Website Design.”
“It has a completely different look and feel than the old site,” said Denise Gallucci, general manager of Magnet Schools at CREC. “It’s a way for us to connect and re-connect with parents in a new way.”
The site features updated photos and videos of CREC’s students, allowing parents to see and read about happenings related to their child’s own school.
“Each of our schools is unique in their themes,” Gallucci said. “It was difficult for us to convey that with our other website.”
The new site, which launched in November, will be introduced in three phases. The first phase is for prospective parents. With a February application deadline, the site was initially focused on providing the appropriate school and application information to parents so they can make an informed decision about school choice.
The second phase focuses on families of students. “The site has an ease of navigation for parents and validates the work their children are doing,” Gallucci said.
The third phase, which has yet to be launched, will be for educators. The site will offer online professional development that uses best practices from within CREC’s schools. It will allow current CREC teachers to have the opportunity to peak into other CREC classrooms.
Gallucci said the positive feedback the council has received from parents is encouraging.
“Our hope was that families in the greater Hartford region could deeply understand how magnet schools are transforming education in Connecticut, and how they deliver instruction in a new way,” she said. “We think what’s contained in this site will help us to get the message out to the community.”
David Louden, president and CEO of Fathom, said the firm worked to express CREC’s mantra of “embolden every learner” through the language, design and function of the website.
“We wanted entire families to understand the depth and breadth of CREC schools,” said Louden. “We see CREC’s need to express their value to new families as a critical component to how they can change a student’s future.”
