So yeah, it needs help. That might be a back-burner project for me.

Since Jim Goring, Casey Cook were elected, and Lisa Grahan re-elected, we have had more openess, exposure of excessive past spending and conflict resoloution resulting from long term nepotism. The real reason things do not get done in this school District is conflicting control by the very unions our board of directors are members of. (Sort of like the fox guarding the chicken coop)

If you want students to design the website, best to appoint students of union members and it will happen!

Voice New Westminster has been aware of these inadequacies since formed. They ran six candidates to resolve many of the issues still troubling the district. The paultry turn out at election time and the excessive financial and union support, made sure status quo prevailed… with exception of Jim, Casey and Lisa.

There will be an opportunity to resolve these issues at the next election. So get out and vote…………or suck it up!

We may even get a high school out of it

I am not at all tech-savvy and so I cannot comment knowledgeably on the complexities of any kind of web-site construction but, if I were to guess, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the site accommodates more than public info., that the private access component might be the sticking point to engaging the help of talented students or well-intended public-sufferers … er, I mean public users of the site. At any rate, that is what I would speculate to be the reason but maybe if you write the school district board, you could receive a more informed and comprehensive answer. Sorry for the lame response.

I just noticed that you already gave the advice using the telephone as a tool here…good idea!

New Westminster is a wonderful place to live, IMO. I do hope a website wouldn’t turn you off of making a move here. I truly love this little town. I love the way it has kept a small town feel, while it is surrounded by such large cities.

I have a few friends with special needs children, and they have been very happy with the support they get from the community, Fraser Health and the school system. Just an FYI.

Good luck with your decision.

Lots of information, but also lots of paper. Paper that might not get recycled and paper that costs money to buy. If there’s that many notes coming home, that quickly becomes a large budgetary item. Electrons are practically free.

Its 2010, for any large institution not to be up with electronic communication methods is just not acceptable.

@anonymous – I knew the second I suggested that a student do the work someone would say it wasn't likely. What is it with that? Douglas College did the same thing when I was student there and paid some ridiculous amount of cash to some random company to have the swirly quadruple D changed into a pointy triangle, despite the fact that they had only the year before triumphantly launched the Print Futures Program which had us all designing wordmarks and logos in our first semester.

As for your comment about the futility of ranting on blogs … I have spoken to folks at the school district about the website and suggested they change it. They are fully aware that it needs to be done. What is missing in my opinion is adequate public pressure to make that happen. Ranting on blogs alone may not do much, but it is one small thing I can do to chivvy them along. I also wanted to use the site as just one example of inadequate web communication throughout New West.

Besides: it's my blog and I can rant if I want to!

Of course, JP's Mom, if you want to take a turn on the soapbox, we do accept guest posts …

My favourite, though, is the council minute/agendas, etc, which are clearly produced in some word processing software (I'd guess Word), then printed, scanned in as a PDF, and put online. I always wonder whether the fact that this process makes them unsearchable is regarded by the city as a bug or a feature…

Meanwhile other cities are actually making the raw data that the city has available online, and the general public are creating useful applications using it. Very sad.

I agree that there is lots of paper. (I can hear the trees crying from my computer chair.) Unfortunately, not all households have the internet available and maybe don't even have a computer. It's impossible to become completely paper free, I think.

I suppose, rather than complaining on public forums, we could simply make a call and request that important information be put up on the appropriate websites. This would be more helpful to New West's future parents. I'll be starting the pre-school stuff again in a few years, with my second lil one and look forward to an easy transition.

Less ranting on blogs, I say, and more finding solutions! In fact, I think that will be my daily blog/rant. ; )

Cheers

Pre-school days were definately a bit confusing, I recall. 3 years into it, I now get an abundance of information coming from my son’s school, keeping me up-to-date on everything. (and then some) As well, many notes coming home from the school distric It gets easier, hang in there.

Pretty soon you’ll get baseball info, soccer, updates on public meetings, may day, newsletter, traffic updates…eek…I find so much info in my sons backpack. (reminds me, I need to check todays pile)

Good luck getting all the info you need.

Cheers!