wordcamp dayton 2015

WORDPRESS FOR SCHOOLS

HOW WE SAVED TAXPAYER DOLLARS (AND YOU CAN TOO)

WordCamp Dayton March 21, 2015

WHO AM I? CAMERON BARRETT

Sr. Manager of Web Site Technology Newark Public Schools

Blogging since 1997 (Really)

CamWorld circa 1998-99

Sorry!

WHO? OLD SKOOL WEB GUY

BUILDING OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY IN ENTERPRISE COMPANIES

WHAT? BUILT SITES FOR

SADLY… NONE OF THEM ON WORDPRESS

circa 2004 A young kid named Matt

BUT THEN… DRUPAL DEV WAS HELLA EXPENSIVE

.NET EVEN MORE DEAR LORD, WHAT A NIGHTMARE

REAL EXAMPLE 6 mos, 4 Devs, $1M Spent COMMUNITY SITE FOR

ARMY BOARD OF GENERALS

REAL EXAMPLE 6 MONTHS, $1M SPENT COMMUNITY SITE FOR

ARMY BOARD OF GENERALS

ARRRGH!

WAIT… BUT WHAT ABOUT SCHOOLS?

ONE MOMENT… JUST A TEENY BIT MORE ABOUT ME

TEACHING FAMILY I GREW UP IN PLACES LIKE THIS Parents were D.O.D.D.S. teachers

Pago Pago, American Samoa

TEACHING FAMILY I GREW UP IN PLACES LIKE THIS Parents were D.O.D.D.S. teachers

North Yorkshire, England

I CARE ABOUT OUR SCHOOLS

But I’m not a teacher, I’m a technologist

So, I decided to use my skills for the greater good and fix the web site technology problems in our public

schools once and for all.

14,000+ PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN U.S.

THEY ALL HAVE WEB

SITES

CORRECTION!

crappy THEY ALL

HAVE

WEB SITES

Crappy, they all look like this

WTF! Flash

WHY? NOT THE SCHOOL’S FAULT

SCHOOLS ARE BEING SOLD CRAPPY,

CLOSED-SOURCE, VENDOR-CONTROLLED, HORRIBLE, BARELY-

WORKING, CONFUSING UI, SaaS SOLUTIONS

WHICH LEADS TO SCHOOL WEB SITES THAT ARE:

NOT UPDATED FREQUENTLY ENOUGH Not updated because “It’s too hard”

Bad templates à Bad Design

Bad clip-art Mania (Ahem, MS Word)

Confusing Navigation and IA

TECHNOLOGISTS IN SCHOOLS SAY

“This vendor solution is closed-source. I could fix these issues easily but…

…I don’t have access to the source code!”

A WORD ON TAXES Bear with me here…

Federal E-Rate dollars

Monthly fees on your phone bill USF à FCC à E-Rate

E-Rate is used to pay for technology in schools (it’s FREE money for schools)

A WORD ON TAXES USF à FCC à E-Rate

A WORD ON TAXES This E-Rate money is going away in

2015-16 fiscal year! Which means school web sites will need

to be paid for by taxpayer dollars

YOUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS The vendors will need to either become way, way cheaper (not likely) or schools

will need to find less expensive solutions (likely).

THE SOLUTION

Migrate school web sites to WordPress

THE SOLUTION

Get local technologists involved in a Technology Committee who can make recommendations to the school board

and superintendent.

Fire your vendors! They are collecting taxpayer dollars and delivering a bad product/service.

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

40,000 students, 75 Web Sites

WordPress Multisite (Launched Aug 29, 2014 – Wahoo!)

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Up-front Development Cost

$30,240

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

WP Development We used these awesome guys

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Dedicated Server Hosting Cost

$14,400 10 million PageViews/yr

Across 75 sites

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Hosting We used this awesome company

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Year Two Dedicated Server Hosting Cost

$7,200 10 million PageViews/yr

Across 75 sites

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Content Migration

$9,000 /plugins/schoolwires-importer.php

30,000 Pages, 100,000+ Media assets

(images, PDF files, etc.)

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Year One Cost

$64,400 Proprietary Vendor SaaS Solution

$59,024 per year

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Year Two Cost

$14,400 Proprietary Vendor SaaS Solution

$59,024 per year

CASE STUDY Newark Public Schools

Five-Year Savings of

$158,720

HOW MUCH? WordPress Saves us money!!!

I haven’t actually done the math for 14,000+ school districts but it’s easily:

$many millions

HOW MUCH? Which can then be used for

Giving raises to teachers Urban after-school programs

Restoring Arts & Drama Pre-K Programs

Fresh, Modern, Responsive Design

Fresh, Modern, Responsive Design

New School Sites, Too! (Where Shaq went to High School…)

Not Just Newark Granite Schools (School District in Utah): 92 Schools

Not Just Newark Granite Schools (School District in Utah): 92 Schools

Not Just Newark Montclair, NJ High School (Rest of District in 2015)

Mobile App! Powered by WordPress (with AppPresser)

Mobile App! Push Notifications directly to smartphones

Saving $$$$$$$$$ Native iOS/Android development for a Public Schools mobile app is

cost-prohibitive.

With AppPresser, we can do the dev in-house for less than $1000

WordPress as an Application Framework

This book!

What this means is: You can develop your own apps and 3rd-party connections

The power of enterprise systems with the freedom of open source

3rd Party Data Services & Apps

NOW WHAT?

http://k12presser.com

Now signing up districts for migration summer of 2015

14,000+ Public School Districts will have access to a free, open source, web site management solution built on top of WordPress

“WordPress for Schools” Service Company

AND THEN… Fire the vendors!

SUPPORT… Schools need technology help

Help migrate your school district to WordPress, volunteer to help train the staff on the Admin, fix design template problems, add

functionality, etc.

Stop paying expensive vendors

Q&A Let me have it

I will also be available tomorrow for more involved Q&A

THANKS! Contact Info

CAMERON BARRETT Sr. Manager of Web Site Technology

Newark Public Schools

cbarrett@nps.k12.nj.us cameron@barrett.org

@camworld