Village School was the first all-girls middle school in the U.S. when it was founded, and is still one of only a few all-girls middle schools in the the U.S.
I was contacted by Eliza O’Connell to see if they could get a much needed update to their school’s website. The site was functional, but very dated, and they’d also recently revamped their sunflower branding. They already had a WordPress site, so it was a matter of finding a flexible theme that would do what they needed. We settled on the BeTheme Kindergarten theme, and I set about customizing it to fit the fresh look they were going for. I applied their new branding, and even created some sunflower themed icons and buttons for use around the site.
The most challenging part was their alumnae pages. They wanted something that alumnae could go to, register and find each other, but we didn’t want that information just out there, and we didn’t want every Tom, Dick, and Hacker out there registering for an account, either. So I placed the initial Alumnae page, with the registration info, behind a password. They need to get that from the office. Once they have that, they can enter it and see the Alumnae page, and the registration page. I opted for the UltimateMember plugin to administer the Alumnae memberships. This allowed me to put certain pages – including the Student Life pages, behind walls, unless the member is logged in. Those not logged in will see a privacy message and be prompted to login. They cannot see the content on those pages – either the Alumnae Directory, or the Student Life blog, until they have a login that has been approved by the admins. It was a long process, but I do think that the school now has a site they can be proud of, and that reflects their unique mission to provide a warm, welcoming environment for educating young girls.
To view the website, visit http://villageschool.us.
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