Welcome to our New Online Home

In many ways, a web site is the front door to an organization. It invites you in, welcomes you, and helps you find what you are looking for once inside.

For many years, Des Moines Public Schools has had a web site, but it wasn’t always the best front door for the largest provider of public education in Iowa. We hope today marks a change.

And so welcome to our new online home.

In addition to a new, cleaner design, the web site now includes several features that we hope will make this a more useful resource, such as:

  • A shorter address: www.dmschools.org. Fewer dots and numbers than our old address, but if you go to www.dmps.k12.ia.us, don’t worry; you’ll be automatically directed to the new web site.
  • For the first time, a district wide calendar of events is now available. From orchestra concerts to football games to hundreds of other activities, you can now make one stop to find out what’s happening across the district.
  • A better organized “Quick Links” section with the links and resources most frequently used by parents, students, staff and the community.
  • A more prominent “District News” section, so from an emergency announcement to recognition of a student to new programs in our schools, it will be front-and-center.
  • A more informative school directory, including not only contact information but also a photo and brief description of each school in Des Moines.
  • A Google map noting the location of each school and district office.
  • Easier access to DMPS-TV programming, which now is available not only on Mediacom Channel 85 or 97.3, but their most recent stories can be viewed right on the home page.
  • Better descriptions and contact information about curriculum areas, departments and offices throughout the district.
  • More integration with our social media sites, including a feed from our Twitter and Flickr pages embedded at the bottom of the home page.

While we hope this site marks a major upgrade from our previous web site, we are already looking at improvement and additional features that will be made in 2012.

And, in the coming weeks and months, we will begin work on each of the web sites for our 60+ schools in Des Moines, so they are a better, more informative source of information for the entire community.

In the meantime, thank you for visiting our new online home. We hope you enjoy your stay.

Published on