At the height of the back-to-school hustle and bustle, a superintendent stood in the front office of a school and took it all in—the phones ringing nonstop, students stepping off the bus as the bell rang, caregivers signing kids in and out, questions flying in every direction.
In the middle of it all, one office staff member stayed focused on helping a new family enroll. They listened patiently, guided them through each step, and made sure they felt seen and supported. Despite the noise and the pressure, they never lost sight of who mattered most in that moment.
That mindset—calm, compassionate and completely focused on families—is exactly how a school website should function.
When a website reflects the real-world needs of students, families, staff, and community members, it becomes a true extension of that front office. Helpful. Welcoming. Clear. It says, “We’re glad you’re here. Let’s get you what you need.”
Lead With People, Not Process
Families visiting your website are usually trying to accomplish something:
- Enroll a child
- Find bus routes
- Check the lunch menu or add funds
- Get academic or language support
- Connect with a teacher or the school office.
They arrive with a purpose, and often with urgency. Designing a site that leads with those needs helps people navigate with confidence. They don’t need to understand how the district is organized internally. They just need to know where to click and who to call.
Structure Reflects Priorities
When navigation reflects family and community needs, rather than department names, the experience becomes intuitive and reassuring. Here’s what that shift can look like:
| Traditional Department-Based Navigation |
Needs First Navigation |
- Student Services
- Teaching & Learning
- Communications
- Human Resources
- Buildings & Grounds
|
- Enroll My Child
- Find Bus Routes
- Pay for Lunches
- Get Support for Learning
- School Attendance Line
|
Building a Digital Front Office
Think of your website as your district’s digital front office: it’s the first impression for many families. It’s also the tool people rely on when the physical office is closed, or when they’re trying to solve something on their own schedule, between their own meetings, or on their 15-minute break.
A digital front office should feel just as approachable and helpful as the people behind the desks. To build that kind of site:
1. Use Plain Language that’s easy to scan and understand and translate
2. Organize information around tasks and questions, not titles or teams
3. Minimize clicks by putting the most-requested content up front
4. Offer contact points and clear next steps on every major page
Pro Tip: Walk through the site as if you’re a new family, or invite in a family that’s new to your district. Start from the homepage and try to enroll a student. How fast can you get there? What stands in the way?
Everyone Benefits From Human-Centered Design
This approach supports more than just families.
Students use the site to find class schedules, request tech help, or get to the media center database.
Staff rely on it for payroll, Human Resource information, calendar updates, and internal systems.
Community members visit to learn about referendums, facility rentals, or attend board meetings.
A needs-first structure makes information easier to find, which leads to stronger engagement and fewer barriers.
As Chelsea Janke, Vice President of Integrated Marketing at CEL Marketing PR Design, shares, “Designing a website around real needs shows that the district is paying attention—that it’s invested in helping people. That trust starts with clarity.”
Create Pathways, Not Pages
Instead of thinking about the site as a collection of pages, think about it as a collection of journeys. What’s the path someone takes to:
- Enroll a child
- Get help for a student with special needs
- Sign up for before- or after-school programs
- Understand a bond or levy
Start by mapping out these common scenarios. Then build your content and structure around them. Every path should:
- Begin with clear, welcoming language
- Anticipate the questions a visitor might have
- End with a clear action, resource, or person to contact
Pro Tip: Review your helpdesk tickets, email inbox, and top web searches. These will quickly reveal what people are actually trying to do.
Honor Your Internal Structures
Some of those internal people—board members and department heads—may prefer a traditional structure. That information can still be part of the site. It simply doesn’t need to be front and center.
It’s like the classic optical illusions:
Is it a rabbit or a duck? Is it a vase or two faces? What color is the dress?
The answer? Both. Depending on your unique perspective that you bring.
School websites work the same way. They serve multiple audiences with multiple perspectives, all seeking a pathway to their goals. Internal teams and board members still have access to the structure and information they rely on.
Instead of “Budget & Finance”, try “How Your Dollars Are Spent”. Instead of “Special Services”, it becomes “Supports for Students”.
Use these refocused department pages as opportunity spaces. Instead of listing functions (save this for your internal staff portal), explain how the department helps people and what actions someone can take there.
Real Stories Build Stronger Design
Designing a people-first website is more than a digital exercise. It’s a mindset shift that mirrors the values already at work across schools every day.
That moment in the school’s front office—the calm, focused care from one staff member in the middle of chaos—illustrates something essential. Families don’t need a complex system. They need someone to walk beside them, answer their questions, and make the process feel manageable.
A thoughtful website can do that. It can extend the same care families feel in the office, the classroom, or the bus stop and bring it into the digital experience.
Start With This Simple Shift
The path to a better site starts with one simple question: What are people trying to do when they visit?
From there, everything becomes clearer:
- How to organize content
- What language to use
- Which pages belong in the top navigation
- Where to guide people next
Departments still play a valuable role, and a people-first design creates space for both internal structure and external support. It’s about organizing information in a way that helps people first and still honors your internal teams and structure behind the scenes.
When a school district builds a site around real needs of real people in real places, it becomes more than a source of information. It becomes a support system. It becomes a true enrollment marketing tool. It shows families, students, staff, and community members that they matter, and that their time matters, too.
This is what inclusive, people-centered communication looks like. It’s simple. It’s powerful. It builds trust from the very first click.
