If concerned parents or just interested residents of Weehawken want to know more about the Weehawken school system, they can now do so in the luxury of their own home or office.
The Weehawken Board of Education officially presented its new website, www.weehawken.k12.nj.us, to the township council at the regularly scheduled council meeting Wednesday night and Mayor Richard Turner and the council gave the new website a rousing seal of approval.
Thanks to the efforts of technology teacher and certified web manager Brian Calligy, the new website is the culmination of nearly two years of collecting pertinent information to put on the site.
“The website currently has 340 pages,” said Calligy, who was among the representatives from the Board of Education who made the presentation to Turner and the council. “It’s separated into different sites for each school, with a different theme for each school.”
According to Calligy, each of the district’s schools, namely Webster (pre-kindergarten through grade two), Roosevelt (grades three through six) and Weehawken High School (grades seven through 12), sent representatives to Calligy to assist in procuring the necessary information to place on the website.
“I needed the cooperation of a lot of people,” Calligy said.
That process began in April, 2000, when Calligy then went to classes and training to receive certification as a web manager.
According to Superintendent of Schools Kevin McLellan, the district surveyed the websites of several different schools throughout the state to determine what would work on Weehawken’s new site.
“We also wanted each school to have a different flair and theme,” McLellan said. “It helped to visit the other sites to get a sense of what other schools and districts were doing.”
Since then, Calligy has been collecting the information, putting it on the site, making sure that he had all the necessary information on the site before officially unleashing it.
“It’s actually been operational for a while,” Calligy said. “But I’ve kept it in hiding until it was officially ready to be presented to the mayor and council.”
Needless to say, the introduction of the website has been the source of excitement throughout the district.
“I am really excited,” Calligy said. “I was also anxious to get it up and running. After showing it to the Board of Education and to the mayor and council, I’m very pleased with the feedback. We’re going to be able to do some great stuff and get the word out about the Weehawken school system. It’s a great outlet for the students, for the parents, for prospective parents and for the entire community that would be interested in our schools.”
McLellan said that the website will serve a variety of purposes.
“We’ll have the lunch menus, so parents know what their children are getting,” McLellan said. “We’ll have articles and features on the schools and what the schools are doing. There will be each teacher’s e-mail address, so parents can correspond with the teachers through the website. There will be an e-library, so students can have access to research materials through the website, which will augment the study process.”
Added McLellan, “The high school site will have more of a mature theme and will feature various aspects of the high school, like extracurricular activities and sporting events. We can put the results of the sporting events on the website.”
McLellan said that all school closings would also be posted on the site as well.
“It’s an outstanding website,” McLellan said. “Brian Calligy did a great job, and this will be a tremendous advantage to us.”
Turner said that he was so impressed with Calligy’s work that the mayor will ask Calligy to construct a township webpage as well in the near future.
“It really brings us closer with everyone in the town,” McLellan said.