The Walt Disney School: A Fast, Stress-Free Website Makeover
The Walt Disney School has been a central part of their Bronx neighborhood for decades. But when they received a magnet grant in 2018, they used the opportunity to reinvent themselves as The Walt Disney Magnet STEAM School. In 2020, they decided to refresh their school website to reflect their new identity. They turned to the branding and design team at eChalk to help them bring their school to life online.
A Website Makeover for the School Choice Era
Walt Disney is located in Co-Op City in the northeast Bronx—the largest residential housing development in the U.S. There are several other public and charter elementary schools in the neighborhood, including another magnet school sharing the same building.
New York City magnet schools are public schools. Unlike zoned schools, which are assigned students according to their attendance area, magnet schools are open to all students within five boroughs of New York City. Parents and students choose to apply to magnet schools based on the special programs and facilities that are supported by the magnet grants. That means that they compete for attendance—and funding—with other schools in the area. In recent years, new charter schools in Co-Op City have siphoned off students from New York City public schools, including The Walt Disney School.
Kwafi Gray, the Parent Coordinator and Website Administrator for the school, knew that their school had plenty to offer for families looking for a unique and high-quality educational experience. They were already an eChalk customer, but they didn’t feel like their six-year-old website fully reflected their new identify and brand. They came to eChalk for help in updating their website with new photography, design, and copywriting to better highlight all the things that make their school special. They also wanted help with accessibility.
Kwafi explains, “We wanted to look at our site through a new lens. We needed to think more like a brand, as opposed to just being a cute school site. The eChalk team took us to another level. It helped to get the eye of people who do this for a living.”
Building a Website that Captures the Heart of the School
The school wanted their new school website to fully reflect their magnet theme and identity. Walt Disney is now a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) magnet school. They have implemented many special programs and partnerships to bring STEAM into their hands-on, project-based curriculum. It was also important to them that families understand the school’s personality and learning environment. Because the website is the first place families look when researching school options, it was important to get the story and images on their new site just right.
Kwafi explains, “We wanted to make the site more welcoming and approachable for interested parents. Our primary goal was pushing our STEAM magnet theme to the forefront, making it the first thing that you know about our school. We also wanted to highlight our warm, welcoming environment, so you could really feel that when you opened the site.” In addition to the STEAM focus, Walt Disney also boasts a Spanish-English dual language program and a “House” system that reinforces social-emotional skills.
The House system at The Walt Disney School helps students feel connected and reinforces their social-emotional learning programs.
The package that they purchased from eChalk included a design makeover, website planning, photography, a branding discussion, writing for their core pages, professional development, and eChalk GUIDE, eChalk’s built-in accessibility checker.
The visual Brochure theme showcases their new photography.
The new website makes great use of the Brochure theme. The visual design allows them to showcase the new photography, featuring their students and some of their special facilities.
The new, professionally written About Us page is targeted to prospective families who don’t know anything about the school. It highlights the elements that make Walt Disney unique and special, such as their Project-Based Learning (PBL) curriculum, dual-language program, focus on diversity and equity, and STEAM programs.
The new About Us page was professionally written by eChalk to highlight the most important features of the school.
The new website reflects the story and image Walt Disney wants to project to both current and prospective families. Kwafi says she is happy to send families to the site now. “eChalk has really captured the heart of our school when you open the page.”
Addressing Website Accessibility for All Users
Website accessibility was the secondary concern that Walt Disney needed to address. New York City schools must show that they are compliant with website accessibility standards by December 31, 2020.
As an equity incubator school, it was important to Walt Disney that information on the website be accessible for all families. That meant that it needed to be translatable for their non-English speaking families. It also had to be accessible to users with disabilities.
The entire website can be translated into 100+ languages using the built-in Google Translate tool.
eChalk has built-in accessibility features, such as ARIA tagging, that make the platform natively more accessible than most. Content creators also have eChalk GUIDE, eChalk’s built-in accessibility checker, to check content for accessibility errors as it is created.
Kwafi says eChalk has made accessibility easy. She first learned about accessibility issues when she attended one of the New York City DOE’s DigIn (Digital Inclusion) Camps, presented by eChalk’s Dave Milne. Later, she had a professional development session to learn how to use the GUIDE tool and create accessible content. “I was afraid of the accessibility issue at first, but eChalk has been great with the training,” she says. “Everyone has been so wonderful and so patient. They never make me feel like it’s a dumb question no matter how many times I call.” GUIDE is helping her find and fix the remaining accessibility errors on their site. “It’s very clear and easy to understand. It shows you exactly where the issue is and directs you back to where you need to go to fix it.”
When Walt Disney started the project, they had 734 accessibility errors on their site. Now, they have reduced that count to just 2.8 accessibility issues per page, which translates to a “5” (equivalent to an “A” grade) in the city’s web accessibility scoring system. That puts Walt Disney in the top 17% of all schools in the city.
A Beautiful, Easy-to-Maintain Website Backed by Great Service
Kwafi says the website makeover process was quick, efficient and easy. “The turnaround time was incredible—we would talk about something and it would be done. And the way they captured our school in words and pictures was amazing. Everything is laid out so well, so it’s easy for everyone to find what they need on our website.”
She also loves how easy the website is to maintain with the eChalk CMS. “It’s very easy to manipulate. Setting up pages and uploading newsletters, videos, and other information is really easy to do. It makes it easier for me to get new information out to parents and keep everything updated. You don’t have to be a tech-head to understand.”
the Walt Disney School uses Emergency Alerts to keep their community informed of breaking news.
Best of all, she knows she has eChalk’s service team to back her up if she needs help. “I can’t say enough about the people I’ve interacted with eChalk. They take the time to answer questions. I know if I ever have any problems or just need help figuring out how to utilize the website features better, I can call. That support is key.”