Change is in the air. It has been quite some time since Regional School District 10 freshened up its webpage but, on Wednesday, November 4th it launched it’s new website.

When asked about his first impressions of the updated website Social Studies teacher; Josh Krampitz says, “It has a cleaner look and it’s aesthetically an improvement from the old one.”

Geoffrey Gelorme, a senior at Lewis S. Mills High school describes the old website to be “old, bland, and outdated” and called the new website “stylish, modern, and unexpected.”

District officials released the website at the end of the marking, the day before a teacher in-service day. It was a surprise to many people, both students and parents who didn’t get an email from Superintendent Alan Beitman, who had informed the teachers that there was going to be a change.

“Our goal was to launch it in the summer, but we ran into some glitches as we tried to transfer over some of our older documents,” Leigh Pont, Lead Technology Teacher gives insight on why they released it when they did, “it slowed us down.”

Sarah Sage, parent of elementary school students claims, “The new website was a complete surprise to me, however I really enjoy it. It’s fresh and new and I like that it fits to my phone because I’m always on the go.”

The recent network is from a larger program known as Sharp School. Other schools like, Enfield and Watertown use this same program. For the first year only, the program is roughly 5,000 dollars which includes all the setup fees. Every additional year costs approximately 3,000 dollars.

The new website includes new features that require a bit of a learning curve for first time visitors. Some of the new features are the calendar that has important dates such as scheduled days off. It also has quick links and for teachers the editing process which is much like Microsoft Word.

Pont explains, “The quick links are different for each school; the homepage has regional ones, but if you went on to the Lewis Mills page some of the links are different.”

The thing that seems to be tripping people up the most is figuring out how to select a school. The tab is located in the top left corner of the webpage in white letters.

“A benefit is that more people are responsible for different aspects of the webpage. For example, the Mills office updates the Mills webpage. This will allow the website to be more up to date, more frequently, and quicker,” Pont affirmed.

The now current webpage encompasses a program known as adaptive design that will change the size of the webpage depending on whether you are using a phone, tablet, or computer. Also, the wiki pages for the teachers consist of a different server for links. This allows the links to handle more traffic from students and parents alike.

Even with the learning curve and some minor changes still being needed, the cutting-edge and enhanced website has brought a new light to Regional School District 10.