Kennett Consolidated rolls out new district website, continues CCIU communications audit and entry‑plan survey

Lisa, communications staff for Kennett Consolidated School District, told the board the district soft‑launched its new district and select school websites on Jan. 6 and is supporting a communications audit and entry‑plan survey being conducted by the CCIU.

The website rollout is accompanied by a communications push connected to the district’s Listen‑Learn‑Lead entry plan and related focus groups and surveys, Lisa said. She asked stakeholders who have not responded to check district email or the communications page on the new site; the online entry‑plan survey is scheduled to close on Wednesday.

Why it matters: the new site is intended to centralize district and school news, make materials ADA‑accessible and translatable, and improve how families find information across multiple schools. That is intended to reduce confusion for families with children at more than one school and to make the district’s strategic‑planning materials easier to access.

Lisa said her team is focused on three priorities — information sharing, platforms and content — and that the department is operating with a single staff person. “The communication department is a department of 1,” she said, noting the workload of creating and populating multiple school sites.

The district embedded key materials on the new sites, including the high school’s educational planning guide. Lisa said embedding the guide makes it ADA‑compliant and translatable immediately: “For the first time, it’s now embedded in our website and they have been actively utilizing the planning guide,” she said.

On analytics, Lisa reported newsletters are being read primarily on mobile devices. She said English‑language newsletter readers open district mailings on mobile devices about 61% of the time on average, while Spanish‑language readers open on mobile roughly 85% of the time; average read time tracked by the district’s analytics tools is about three to four minutes, with some longer newsletters showing 5½–6 minutes. Newsletter open counts reported to the board were about 1,500 for the English edition and 212 for the Spanish edition.

The district uses Smore for newsletters and Weglot for non‑Google translations available on the site; Lisa said she will work to expand the number of paid Weglot languages beyond the five the district currently subscribes to so the site better serves the community’s reported language preferences.

Lisa also described continuing emergency and weather communications work using School Messenger, noting School Messenger’s parent company PowerSchool purchased the product last year and the district is tracking product changes and performance.

Board members asked about additional accessibility features, including an automated “read aloud” narrator. Lisa said the district’s vendor (Finalsite/website platform and Weglot translation) does not currently provide an integrated narration product and that the district is tracking requests from stakeholders and accessibility requirements during the site build. She noted that images posted on the site include descriptive alt text required for accessibility.

The Chester County Intermediate Unit (CCIU) is completing a communications audit that includes virtual focus groups and a survey; Lisa said she supported recruiting and outreach for those focus groups and that the CCIU will analyze survey and focus‑group data after the survey closes. Results from the CCIU audit will be considered alongside materials the communications office has already produced.

Lisa invited board members and the public to review the new sites (kcsd.org) and to use the website content input form on the communications page to report problems or request content changes. She said the district will continue to train administrators and school staff to add and manage content across the district’s seven sites.

Looking ahead, Lisa said she plans to expand analytics capabilities and to increase engagement with local and regional media, teachers, students and community organizations; she also said she hopes to integrate student participation in future media production as new curriculum and course offerings come online.

Board members praised the progress and noted the heavy workload of maintaining seven websites and communications for a one‑person office.