The Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) web site has been named the best K-12 school district web site in the United States by the Center for Digital Education.

The site - www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org - won the 2004 Best of the Web (BOW) award. In its third year, the BOW evaluates higher education, K-12 state, and K-12 district web sites on their innovation, web-based delivery of public services, efficiency, economy, and functionality for improved student and faculty access.

“Our talented web team has done an excellent job of designing and maintaining a site that provides easy access to the full range of important school system topics, including the capability to communicate emergency messages,” Dr. Jerry Weast, superintendent of schools, told the Center.

The Web team includes Chris Noonan Sturm, director; Elaine Keagle, technical lead; Gail Horvath, systems engineer and webmaster support; and Susan Eskite, designer and content producer. The team supports more than 800 school and office webmasters, manages web-related servers and systems, and develops applications that facilitate web communications and publishing.

The BOW is the second award the MCPS web site has won this year. In June, the site won the National School Public Relations Association's Gold Medallion award.

In the past year and a half, the Web Services Team has made dramatic improvements to the site's content and design, resulting in a more than 40 percent increase in visitors in the 2004 fiscal year. Many office and school webmasters contributed to the site's effectiveness by improving their own sites' content and structure. The improvement plan was supported by John Q. Porter, Deputy Superintendent for Strategic Technologies and Accountability, and John Burke, Director of Technology Consulting and Communications.

The award will be presented in conjunction with a Best of the Web Summit conference in New York City on October 21 and 22. The Center for Digital Education is a national research and advisory institute on K-12 and higher education technology.

More information is available on the Web Services and Center for Digital Education links.