MPS Website Presents New Face to Community

Screenshot of MPS website.

Milwaukee school superintendent Brenda Cassellius and the school board have placed outreach to the community as one of their highest priorities. With that in mind, the district has totally redesigned its website, attempting to make it more user-friendly with more useful information. One can reach the new design through any web browser by typing “milwaukeepublicschools.org.”

The first thing one will notice is the visuals: more photographs, more videos, more storytelling. It provides more information in a more user-friendly way. It’s also about public relations, an attempt to promote MPS as a school system for you to send your child to and for the public to support. All the data is there: the low test scores, the dropout rates. But the visuals show optimism, a can-do vision. Everything may not be perfect, but there is a lot to like in MPS, the messaging says.

The previous MPS website did less of that. “When the governor issued the operational review of the district, this was identified as a priority,” says Tony Tagliavia, MPS chief communications Officer. “In the summer, we identified this as a high-priority project.”

The project redesign began before Tagliavia came on board as the district’s communications officer, but he now directs its development and direction. The preliminary estimate was to have the rollout last October. Tagliavia admits this was too ambitious, but it did meet its new date, the end of the calendar year. While everything appears to be up and running now, the official announcement will come sometime in the middle of January.

“The site is modern and reflects how people access information. We have better navigation, better search functions,” says Tagliavia. They looked at how people used the previous website and determined the most-used function was the school calendar. So they put a button at the top of the first page to get to the MPS calendar.

Through the MPS Office of Accountability and Efficiency site, one can access the state report cards going back to 2015-16. But links to individual MPS schools go back only two years. If one is looking for long-term school trends, that is available at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI). The question becomes whether too much information is helpful or whether the reader just gets lost in the forest. But a link to DPI is there.

Tagliavia says the redesign has sought input from the student advisory council and the board’s Family and Community Engagement (FACE) committee, as well as asking teachers and citizens for ongoing suggestions.

No website is ever totally done. As Tagliavia notes, “We worked with offices and departments to make sure the information is as up-to-date as it can be. That is going to be an ongoing process. Departments providing regular updates.”

Tagliavia sees a need to integrate this website with an intranet for district employees. If parents are using the MPS website, teachers need to know what is there.

Right now, a statement from each school board member on what is happening in each individual district is there, but they all read the same. Tagliavia says he will work with the Office of Board Governance to tailor individual district messages. However, the new website was just launched, and the board’s office has not had time to react. Every department or office may not be that media savvy, Tagliavia admits, but help is offered. “There is a writer on our team who works with the offices and departments, may suggest improvements, review language that they give,” he says. “It’s a teamwork process.”

The new website does not have a complementary cellphone app. The previous app provider was not part of this redesign. Many MPS parents and community members do not have internet service beyond their cellphones. However, if a user types in “milwaukeepublicschools.org” in the cellphone browser, the district’s website will reformulate its information in a cellphone format.

School board members continually state that the parents are the first teachers of their children. The more information MPS can provide on its website to help parents in the education of their children the better. The website has to be more than a public relations tool. The district is working on that.