On Monday, October 30, Parker launched a new website for the school. The old one, which featured photos of middle schoolers who are now in high school on its homepage, was replaced with a redesigned site that had been in the works for a year.

According to Director of Information Technology Peter Evans, when Blackbaud, the company which provides Parker’s digital software, released its most recent technology, it created a new content management system for the school to utilize. The system allowed for the transition to the Portal, as well as the move of the website to an updated web platform from the outdated one. One advantage of this platform is that it makes the site responsive, meaning that it adjusts its display depending on the user’s device.

“Being on Blackbaud’s older tool, it was becoming harder for us to manage the behind-the-scenes of our website, like posting new pages and creating new content,” Evans said. “While moving from their old system to their new system, we decided to also redesign at the same time.  The Tech department’s role was helping to build the back-end of the website, like how the system connects to the Portal.”

On the website, there’s less information related to just the internal community because it’s all accessible through the Portal. For example, the Blue Calendar and athletic calendars are no longer available to anyone without a login.

Instead, Director of Communications Nick Saracino, who organized the layout and content of the website, compiled new content from teachers across the departments that presents more information about the school to readers.

“We had a large part in writing up the Library and Technology part of the website and contributing information about projects that we do in the library, so it feels really authentic,” Middle and Upper School Librarian Annette Lesak said.  “I think it’s a lot more representative of Parker.”

Sophomore Iz Bruozis appreciates the redesigned site. “I think it looks really cool and updated,” she said. “Since technology is changing so much, and we as a school are changing, it’s nice to see that our site is as well.”