WildFireWeb Offers Free School Websites to All 130,000 Public and Private K-12 Schools Nationwide
WebSchoolPro Poised to Save Schools Millions in Website Creation and Maintenance
WildFireWeb(R), Inc., a Northern California company founded by education technology professionals, is now offering free WebSchoolPro(TM) websites to all 130,000 public and private K-12 schools in the United States. Piloted in 15 California school districts from 2006 through 2008, WebSchoolPro is now available nationwide, enabling any school or district to quickly create and easily maintain their own website at no cost.
"In an era when schools have limited time, budgets and resources, WebSchoolPro websites empower educators with simple tools that encourage and improve communication, participation, and fundraising efforts," said Blaine Transue, co-founder and CEO of WildFireWeb. "To succeed, our schools, teachers, and students need and deserve the same technological advantages and opportunities as businesses."
WebSchoolPro's free school websites, based on patent-pending technology, liberate schools and districts from the high cost of website creation and maintenance by providing simple tools that enable total control over web content from any computer with a browser and internet connection.
Any K-12 school in the US can create their new free website in less than five minutes using WebSchoolPro's automated signup. Schools outside of the US can sign up for their free school website by using a simple request form online.
Authorized users can edit their secure website as easily as working with word processing or e-mail software, from within any standard web browser. No special hardware or software is required, and there is no limit to the number of pages or amount of content a site can contain.
With a WebSchoolPro free school website, teachers can create virtual classrooms with expandable space for updates, notes, assignments, files, resources, image galleries, calendars and blogs as well as tap into professional resources and networks. Parents can stay in touch through online forums and a built-in alert system. Educators and staff can revise announcements, schedules and other mission critical information as often as necessary.
Advertising on school property can be controversial, but, according to Transue, "It can be done responsibly so that all parties win. There are many appropriate sponsors interested in supporting our education institutions. We work closely with schools and advertisers to ensure success for everyone involved."
Two standard options are available. Under the free model, school websites are fully supported by approved, conscientious sponsors and advertisers. Schools interested in a non-advertising based solution can pay a fixed annual fee that covers all costs or their website. District and volume pricing programs are also available.
California's Sonoma Valley Unified School District was the first to sign up and convert all of their schools. "WebSchoolPro enables us to immediately share vital information within our district and community," said former Superintendent Barbara Young. "Our departments, schools, teachers and staff now maintain their own websites and pages quickly and easily at no cost."
To sign up for or learn more about WebSchoolPro, visit http://www.webschoolpro.com. Principals or district administrators can call 707-789-0769 or email info@webschoolpro.com to request an activation code.
About WildFireWeb
WildFireWeb, Inc., provides innovative web-based technology solutions for business, education, and nonprofit organizations. Headquartered in Petaluma, Calif., the company was founded in 2005 by Blaine Transue and Steve Sweet, who have assisted education communities with technology services and support for more than 20 years. For more information, visit http://www.wildfireweb.com or call 707-789-0769.
Information Contact:
Blaine Transue, CEO
WildFireWeb, Inc.
707-789-0769
btransue@wildfireweb.com
http://www.wildfireweb.com
http://webschoolpro.com
SOURCE WildFireWeb, Inc.
http://www.wildfireweb.com
Book examines four new teachers' experience at Watts' Locke High School
Donna Foote spent a year at troubled Locke High School in Watts observing and documenting the workaday struggles of four new teachers.
In her recently published book, "Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches With Teach For America," Foote delves into the lives of the teachers she met and reveals much about the high school.
Locke is in transition: The Los Angeles Unified School District turned it over last month to Green Dot Public Schools, a charter operator that plans to break Locke up into eight smaller campuses to boost student performance.
The teachers Foote chronicled during the 2005-06 school year were hired through Teach For America, a national group that places recent college graduates in urban schools and requires them to teach for at least two years. In the L.A. region, Locke had more teachers from the group than any other school. The teachers Foote followed -- Phillip Gedeon, Hrag Hamalian, Taylor Rifkin and Rachelle Snyder -- have remained in education; only one, Gedeon, had expected teaching to be his career.
Here is an interview with Foote, a former correspondent for Newsweek who lives in Manhattan Beach, on the eve of Locke's transformation.
You say that resources weren't a problem at Locke; rather, the school has "no culture of achievement." What did you mean by that?
For the last 20 years, the school has been flat-lining. . . . It's a very large school situated in a very bad neighborhood. Unstable gang and crime problems. Unstable families, a large immigrant population, many of whom are not conversant in English. A whole culture of poverty that leads to a lack of a culture of achievement.
How can that be reversed?
There are models out there in schools in equally bad neighborhoods that can exploit the natural gifts these kids have. The Green Dot model is one. I think smaller is better, but for my money the most important ingredient is the quality of teaching. A disproportionate number of lower-achieving teachers tend to end up at places like Locke. Having said that, you and I know there are a lot of great, dedicated teachers there. There's just not enough of them. . . . I absolutely did not meet a single kid who didn't want to learn.
How about parents? Did you sense they are too busy with their own working lives to get involved?
The school really hasn't made an effort to reach out to them. It didn't happen. I found this really interesting: Whenever some of the teachers had real problems and called a parent, inevitably the parent would say this was the first time they'd ever heard from a teacher and things would turn around. . . . What I saw is that if you really reach out to them, of course they want their kids to achieve.
You had such great access to the teachers and students. You wrote about their lives, personally and professionally. Did you even attend the field trips that you wrote about?
Yes, I went on the trip to Catalina. What really sticks with me is this: There were four or five adults and 20 kids. There was no bus, so the adults drove the kids home and to the boat. I had four boys in my car Friday afternoon. They asked if we could stop at a McDonald's. We get in the drive-through lane and I say it's too long. I said, "Let's park and go inside." They said: "We can't." They looked a little sheepish. They had on blue. It was Bloods [gang] territory. It kind of broke my heart. Their lives are so circumscribed: They can't go to McDonald's without fearing for their lives.
What's happening to the four teachers that you followed? Are they staying in education?
Yes, they are all still in education. . . . I have to say one of the things I took from my experience is what an amazing generation this is, so smart, so driven. . . . I feel very lucky to have met them and shared this journey.
How did you decide to write about Teach For America?
I had been watching Teach For America since the beginning. I began keeping clips, but I never thought I had a good peg. My niece had done it. In the spring of 2005, I saw a little press release that said 12% of the graduating class at Yale had applied for TFA and 11% at Harvard and Princeton. . . . It struck me how interesting to see how we educate our most impoverished through the eyes of our most privileged.
Here are some excerpts from the book:
But what really got [Gedeon] that week was the realization that, at Locke, he really was considered one of the best teachers. That was crazy! If I'm one of the best, what does that say about everyone else? He knew his kids were learning and achieving. But he was a first-year teacher; he had so much more to learn. He was only doing what should be the norm for every teacher: setting high expectations, holding his kids accountable, and working his butt off. There was nothing amazing about it. It should have been standard operating procedure.
[Taylor Rifkin] felt so good about what she was doing that she would have taught at Locke High School without pay. This is the biggest accomplishment I've ever had -- maybe the biggest I ever will have.
These kids had so much anger. Their short fuses freaked Taylor out. Even the girls were explosive -- even the ones you didn't think had it in them sometimes erupted. Through her tears, Taylor made some decisions. The next unit she taught would be about race.
Several kids were primary school readers. The rest were not much farther ahead. The kids had biology textbooks, but they were stacked along the walls; no one could read them.
There were no systems in place at Locke. Teachers hoarded supplies, and books that had been ordered and paid for were never distributed . . . and the school counselors didn't have functioning computers. There was a budget, estimated to be around 20 million dollars, but nobody ever saw it. . . . The adults at Locke were failing the kids.
Donna Foote spent a year at troubled Locke High School in Watts observing and documenting the workaday struggles of four new teachers.
In her recently published book, "Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches With Teach For America," Foote delves into the lives of the teachers she met and reveals much about the high school.
Locke is in transition: The Los Angeles Unified School District turned it over last month to Green Dot Public Schools, a charter operator that plans to break Locke up into eight smaller campuses to boost student performance.
The teachers Foote chronicled during the 2005-06 school year were hired through Teach For America, a national group that places recent college graduates in urban schools and requires them to teach for at least two years. In the L.A. region, Locke had more teachers from the group than any other school. The teachers Foote followed -- Phillip Gedeon, Hrag Hamalian, Taylor Rifkin and Rachelle Snyder -- have remained in education; only one, Gedeon, had expected teaching to be his career.
Here is an interview with Foote, a former correspondent for Newsweek who lives in Manhattan Beach, on the eve of Locke's transformation.
You say that resources weren't a problem at Locke; rather, the school has "no culture of achievement." What did you mean by that?
For the last 20 years, the school has been flat-lining. . . . It's a very large school situated in a very bad neighborhood. Unstable gang and crime problems. Unstable families, a large immigrant population, many of whom are not conversant in English. A whole culture of poverty that leads to a lack of a culture of achievement.
How can that be reversed?
There are models out there in schools in equally bad neighborhoods that can exploit the natural gifts these kids have. The Green Dot model is one. I think smaller is better, but for my money the most important ingredient is the quality of teaching. A disproportionate number of lower-achieving teachers tend to end up at places like Locke. Having said that, you and I know there are a lot of great, dedicated teachers there. There's just not enough of them. . . . I absolutely did not meet a single kid who didn't want to learn.
How about parents? Did you sense they are too busy with their own working lives to get involved?
The school really hasn't made an effort to reach out to them. It didn't happen. I found this really interesting: Whenever some of the teachers had real problems and called a parent, inevitably the parent would say this was the first time they'd ever heard from a teacher and things would turn around. . . . What I saw is that if you really reach out to them, of course they want their kids to achieve.
You had such great access to the teachers and students. You wrote about their lives, personally and professionally. Did you even attend the field trips that you wrote about?
Yes, I went on the trip to Catalina. What really sticks with me is this: There were four or five adults and 20 kids. There was no bus, so the adults drove the kids home and to the boat. I had four boys in my car Friday afternoon. They asked if we could stop at a McDonald's. We get in the drive-through lane and I say it's too long. I said, "Let's park and go inside." They said: "We can't." They looked a little sheepish. They had on blue. It was Bloods [gang] territory. It kind of broke my heart. Their lives are so circumscribed: They can't go to McDonald's without fearing for their lives.
What's happening to the four teachers that you followed? Are they staying in education?
Yes, they are all still in education. . . . I have to say one of the things I took from my experience is what an amazing generation this is, so smart, so driven. . . . I feel very lucky to have met them and shared this journey.
How did you decide to write about Teach For America?
I had been watching Teach For America since the beginning. I began keeping clips, but I never thought I had a good peg. My niece had done it. In the spring of 2005, I saw a little press release that said 12% of the graduating class at Yale had applied for TFA and 11% at Harvard and Princeton. . . . It struck me how interesting to see how we educate our most impoverished through the eyes of our most privileged.
Here are some excerpts from the book:
But what really got [Gedeon] that week was the realization that, at Locke, he really was considered one of the best teachers. That was crazy! If I'm one of the best, what does that say about everyone else? He knew his kids were learning and achieving. But he was a first-year teacher; he had so much more to learn. He was only doing what should be the norm for every teacher: setting high expectations, holding his kids accountable, and working his butt off. There was nothing amazing about it. It should have been standard operating procedure.
[Taylor Rifkin] felt so good about what she was doing that she would have taught at Locke High School without pay. This is the biggest accomplishment I've ever had -- maybe the biggest I ever will have.
These kids had so much anger. Their short fuses freaked Taylor out. Even the girls were explosive -- even the ones you didn't think had it in them sometimes erupted. Through her tears, Taylor made some decisions. The next unit she taught would be about race.
Several kids were primary school readers. The rest were not much farther ahead. The kids had biology textbooks, but they were stacked along the walls; no one could read them.
There were no systems in place at Locke. Teachers hoarded supplies, and books that had been ordered and paid for were never distributed . . . and the school counselors didn't have functioning computers. There was a budget, estimated to be around 20 million dollars, but nobody ever saw it. . . . The adults at Locke were failing the kids.
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