Portals

BCPSS Looks To Expand Community Involvement

• By Evan Tassistro
• 05/03/10

Citing a need to improve information flow between the district and the schools it serves, the Baltimore City Public School System (BCPSS) is moving to Schoolwires Centricity to manage online communications.

"By broadening and enhancing our communications through our Web site, we will be able to better engage with our community and showcase the extraordinary transformation under way at all of our schools," said Michael A. Sarbanes, executive director of partnerships, communications, and community engagement for BCPSS. Previously, BCPSS operated a Web site at the district level but lacked ability to reliably include individual schools in communications. The district also cited a need for Centricity's digital file sharing capabilities.

Centricity ties the Web site content from different schools and district organizations together via a single platform and offers inclusion of form, survey, and blog content, as well as e-mail and electronic alert capabilities, for real-time information distribution.

The Centricity platform is an example of the increasingly accepted "Web 2.0" tools used in to facilitating communication and participation in a community, which focuses on interactivity between content providers and end-users.

Baltimore City Public Schools currently enrolls more than 82,000 students and supports 201 schools and programs.