The Challenge
The district had a website that was outdated, inaccessible, and difficult to navigate, but with no immediate budget for a full redesign, they needed a practical path forward. The goal was to improve the existing site in the near term while planning for a full rebuild the following fiscal year.
What I Did
In the first phase, reorganized the site navigation and resolved accessibility issues including color contrast errors. Collaborated directly with the CMS vendor (Edlio) to adjust homepage design elements that were outside direct editing access. Embedded a superintendent welcome video and updated photography throughout the site. Cleaned up the News and Events sections for improved usability. Identified and implemented a custom solution to embed the district’s ParentSquare feed, a third-party integration not natively supported by the CMS, improving community communications without waiting for a full redesign.
In the second phase, led the district’s transition to Finalsite, guiding template selection, accessibility reviews, layout refinements, and stakeholder alignment to deliver a clean, compliant, and user-friendly redesign.
The Outcome
Both phases delivered measurable improvements to accessibility, SEO, and overall user experience. The interim refresh extended the life of the existing site and solved a long-standing communications gap with the custom ParentSquare integration. The subsequent Finalsite redesign gave the district a modern, fully accessible website built for long-term maintainability.
Services Provided
Website Refresh | CMS Migration (Edlio to Finalsite) | Accessibility Remediation | Navigation Redesign | Third-Party Integration | WAVE and JAWS Testing | Stakeholder Alignment