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Read the press release here.

City Pulls Plug on Funding for School Websites

By Emily Frost | May 28, 2015 7:27am
 P.S. 191 PTA members said they will have to pay more than $2,000 for a web host this year.
P.S. 191 PTA members said they will have to pay more than $2,000 for a web host this year.
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DNAinfo/Emily Frost

UPPER WEST SIDE — The city is pulling the plug on a program that helped schools pay for websites, leaving them to manage the process of building the sites on their own while footing costly Web-hosting bills.

The Department of Education's move follows a decision last summer by the Federal Communications Commission to end website subsidies, which had amounted to anywhere between 20 and 90 percent of the cost depending on the school's identified poverty level.

The popular Web-hosting platform eChalk, specifically designed for use by K-12 schools, was among the providers on the federal chopping block, leaving the more than 400 citywide schools that use the service in the lurch.

The Department of Education stepped in this past year, providing funding to offset the  loss of the government's eChalk subsidy as schools transitioned to another service, a DOE spokesman said.

But that temporary subsidy will disappear in the upcoming school year, the spokesman and local PTA reps confirmed.

Members of the Upper West Side's Community Education Council 3 said they were unaware of the funding gap until being told by a parent.

"Our schools need the basic tools to communicate with parents and students about upcoming meetings, homework and curriculum, important updates and changes in the school calendar," CEC 3 President Joe Fiordaliso said in a statement.

"Eliminating this funding is short-sighted. Not telling our schools, PTAs or CEC3 is a big mistake. Leaving parents and students in the dark is inexcusable." 

Now, if schools can't or don't want to pay the high fees for education-focused websites, they'll need to hire a Web designer and add the maintenance to a staffer's responsibilities — or hope a parent with time and know-how volunteers for the job, education leaders said.

School websites are widely viewed as a necessity for updating parents and students about events and news, ranging from state testing to school closures to class performances and activities. They're also used as a portal for parents to communicate with teachers and administrators.

As the subsidies have dried up, eChalk's rates have climbed — complicating the issue for schools.

PTA leaders at P.S. 191, an Upper West Side elementary school where 84 percent of the school population is considered "economically disadvantaged," said they are faced with an eChalk bill that has more than doubled this year — from $975 pre-subsidy for each of the past two years to $2,100 for next school year. 

At a recent meeting, P.S. 191's PTA Vice President Kim Watkins said her school could think about switching to another website host, but noted it's not an easy undertaking. 

"It’s somewhat labor-intensive to go through the data and pull it onto a new template," Watkins explained, adding that her school was not alone.

The DOE did not respond to a request for comment on the amount of the discounts offered to eChalk customers or why it stopped providing the subsidy after a year.

Schools have come to rely on eChalk, a 16-year-old company that advertises itself as serving K-12 schools by offering a simple site design and back-end, as well as lots of support, said Community Education Council 3 member Noah Gotbaum. 

"They draw you in, and then they raise the rate," he said.

Watkins suggested to the CEC at a recent meeting that schools come together to negotiate a better rate with eChalk, but no firm plans have been made as of yet.

Officials with eChalk did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the rate hike or whether it would negotiate new fees with schools based on their loss of subsidies.

Of the 21 elementary schools on the Upper West Side, 19 have websites and nine of those currently use eChalk.

P.S. 75 PTA Co-President John Decatur said he felt lucky his school didn't go with eChalk, given the rise in rates and the loss of subsidies. 

"We looked at eChalk, as it would potentially make things simpler and adds functionality, but the cost is high," he wrote in an email. 

Instead, the West End Avenue school is using the Web-hosting service Hostgator for $8 a month for its school site. A parent designed the site and is in charge of its administration, Decatur said. 

"The issue with our approach is that with parent turnover, we may not always have the necessary expertise," he said, adding that the site is in need of upgrades and he's not sure when they will happen. 

With eChalk, technology and design updates occur automatically with the service, according to the company's site.  

Competitors and startups could offer better rates to schools, but pursuing these requires parents or staff advocates who have the time and knowledge to build a site from scratch — or the money to hire someone who does, CEC 3 member Barbara Denham said. 

The DOE did not respond to requests for comment regarding whether it offered guidance to schools on how to switch their websites to cheaper services, or how to build and run sites without the help of providers like eChalk.