New Web site helps connect BHS schedules, parents

Bigfork High School has established a new resource to increase communication about school activities among parents, students and the community.

The school recently began using http://www.highschoolsports.net, an online scheduling tool. The Web site allows visitors to look up practice times, game times, locations, opponents, departure times, return times and meetings. The site is sports-centric, but also includes a multitude of other school activities including, choir and band concerts and club meetings.

“Communication is so key on so many levels,” said BHS assistant activities director Matt Porrovecchio. “The reality is that schedules aren’t always conveyed and messages aren’t always relayed. So the idea is to have a central place for everyone to go.”

Schedules can be viewed in a two-day, weekly, monthly or full-season format. Visitors can reduce the number of items that are shown by sorting by sport, gender and level. Most of the away games on the schedule have a link that will take viewers to the http://www.Mapquest.com Web site where they can put in their starting location and get directions to the game. All of the information can be printed for those that prefer to have a hard copy.

The site also has the capability to send schedule notifications to an e-mail account or cell phone. This feature lets the interested party know that a game or practice has been changed, postponed or canceled. Another interesting feature of the site is called “The Chalkboard.” It contains links, announcements and important related documents, all of which are frequently updated.

The BHS Web site, http://www.bigfork.k12.mt.us, has some of the same information, but because it is run by students it takes longer for things to get updated since they have to be cleared by more people.

Several school officials have access to the administrative side of the Web site, which also helps them with scheduling of building use, transportation and game help, as well as keeping track of coaches contact information and their required testing and certification.

BHS has had a lot of turn-over among their coaches and administrators over the last couple of years, and if this new tool is successful the school hopes that it will aid in communication despite any changes of staffing.

“This doesn’t replace communication with the coaches and with the school, but it will help,” Porrovecchio said.

Parents voiced concern at the November Bigfork School Board meeting that there wasn’t enough consistent communication among parents, the school and the community.  A couple of months prior to those comments, Porrovecchio found the Web site and decided that it met the schools needs. He originally thought of the idea of using a tool like this last year, and did some searching this fall and found this particular site to be adequate as well as cost effective, at $200 a year.

“The main thing is we wanted to get the schedules out for anyone that wants them,” Porrovecchio said. “We also wanted a way for administrators to keep track of coaches contact information and where they were at with completing their certifications and testing.”

Since subscribing to the service, Porrovecchio has spent many hours compiling available scheduling information through the end of the school year.

“Everyone is so digital now that I think it will be pretty popular,” Porrovecchio said.