Hi, I am new to this site and have been doing some research on school PTO websites. It seems it has been a while since someone has posted website related info, so I thought I would create a new one.

We are starting up a new Middle School next year and that means a new PTO website as well. We know at this point in time that our site will be separate from the school site. I will be the one responsible for and updating the site. I am not new to website design, but am to PTO site design. Can anyone give me any advice on how the free hosting sites have been for them, whether it is good or bad? I am leaning more to paying for hosting on ours, but would still like some feedback. Also, feel free to post your sites as well and I will gladly look at them.

Thanks,

CJ

We use LunarPages (www.lunarpages.com) which offers a free domain name and free hosting for K-12 public schools. They only request that you put a small banner on the bottom of your homepage that states that hosting has been donated by them. With PTO budgets so tight, this is a great deal for us.

We have a parent who built the site using Dreamweaver but we use Frontpage to update periodically. Our site is for both PTO and the school as we wanted parents to have a one-stop shop. Check us out at James Madison Intermediate.

You should check out what PTASECURE Website Solutions has to offer!

I just went and checked out the previous poster's rec to the PTASecure site, and ouch! $40 per month + a $150 setup fee?!

Personally, we go through Dreamhost (Web Hosting by DreamHost Web Hosting: Web Sites, Domain Registration, WordPress, Ruby on Rails, all on Debian Linux!), who offers lifetime free service to non-profits with proof of 501(c)(3) status. It took us all of 2 days to get the set up with them done, and then my husband built the site himself. We did have to buy our own domain name, but with the hosting being free, that wasn't a huge deal to us. Then we contacted Google Apps For Education, also free, in order to use their services, and we use the PTO Today version of the Constant Contact program for free.

Who you go through is entirely your group's decision, but I just wanted to put my $0.02 in regarding paying $480 per year to get something that you can get for free from good, reputable hosting companies. None of the functionality offered by that site is difficult for anyone with a modicum of skill to build. Even if no one on your board has that skill (which it sounds like you do), it's almost certain that someone in your parent group does.

I joined the website team after the hosting and domain name was already established at hostgator.com. I am technical but am not a webmaster (at least I wasn't). I built about 3 sites before I finalized the last one using joomla - a content management system. I wanted a system that a non-HTML person could edit and maintain. I didn't want all of the work I had done to go by the wayside once I left the school. (My son only has 1 more year at the school.) I am creating a user's manual and a techncial manual so that those that follow me will know how to do things. I have had one and plan to have more training sessions using a product like gotomeeting or gotoassist to train the users.

One thing to be cautious of is the tools you use to create your website. Some vendors offer free software (like sitebuilder), but if you decide to change hosts you will need to create your site all over. Although our site is not perfect it is getting quite a bit of use and I have some programs in place to increase usage even more. Our site is located at Welcome to the Bond MIll PTO Home Page. - It may need some work but it has a lot of info and we have only had it up for 2 months.

I came upon a site that has what we needed. www.e-pto.org. It is a content management site for PTO/PTA. You don't have to know HTML to use it!