D86 Website Design Complete, New App Launched

Submitted by Hinsdale Township High School District 86.

Hinsdale, IL - Hinsdale Township High School District 86 has announced that its new website design for the District, the Transition Center, Hinsdale Central and Hinsdale South High Schools was completed over winter break.

The new design incorporates some notable new features including a Tip Line, a translation function and an expanded photo gallery.

Accompanying the new website design is a new, fully integrated mobile app. The new app offers additional functionality including the Tip Line, sports scores, photo streams, Board news and more. Users can customize some of the feeds, see calendars and enable push notifications to their smartphone or tablet. Click here to download.

While the original mobile app launched last May still works, it does not integrate with the website or the mass notification system Blackboard Connect. Therefore, it has been discontinued and is no longer available for download.

The District’s new Tip Line is accessible through the new app and through a global icon on all the websites. The Tip Line serves as an additional component to bolster the safety tools and protocols already in place. Through the Tip Line users can submit tips to school or District Administration, providing another mechanism to encourage students to come forward when they have a concern. Tips can be submitted anonymously or users can choose to include their information. It is important to note that the Tip Line does not replace any hotline numbers or email addresses already in use to provide information.

“We are very excited to deliver these final pieces of our communications technology initiative,” said Director of Communications Karen Warner. “It has been a very intense time but we have been able to accomplish our goals and we are very proud of that. Now that the rollout phase is complete, we can begin to monitor the analytics data to enhance these tools and continually refine our content based on that data.”

“To think that in just six months we have been able to implement all of these tools for our students, families, faculty and staff is truly astounding,” remarked Superintendent Dr. Bruce Law. “We were very aware that our District did not offer the communications, information or notifications to the standard our community wanted, and frankly, should expect in today’s world. We made these issues a priority and we have made good on our promise. And of course, as this is not a static environment, we will continue to evaluate and improve our outreach, engagement efforts and tools as conditions and products change.”

Dr. Law also commented on the new Tip Line, “Administrators and Student Resource Officers have worked together to implement the Tip Line and agree that it provides another mechanism to encourage students to come forward when they have a concern. We know that students and others often are in the best position to see something, and if they do, we want to give them as many media for saying something as possible. The power of this function in the app is that it can quickly and easily give administrators information that could prove vital in addressing situations.”