Technology has become an important part of education in the last decade. Most schools have their own websites that provide information about their schools and curriculum, and some even provide parents an opportunity to check grades or student absences. With the economy being what it is, finding a way to provide a website at no or low-cost is essential to many schools.

Determine what functions you want your website to provide. Do you want each teacher to have a webpage? Do you want to be able to upload files, such as class assignments? Do you want parents to be able to search for grades? The answers to these questions will determine what website provider you will choose.

Choose from the multitude of providers that offer websites free to schools. Understand what you are giving up by choosing from the free providers. Most of these will either be posting ads on the pages or trying to get you to upgrade to a Website at some cost. Most of these providers offer expanded features if you are willing to pay for their services and use the free sites as a jumping off point.

Choose a reliable person at your school as your website coordinator. You need one point person to create content, assign teacher webpages and be sure information is updated as changes occur to your site. Without an assigned contact, webpages can grow stale, and you might wind up with links that don't work. Then your website will stop being a useful tool for parents.

Get all of your teachers onboard, creating webpages that provide useful information to parents. Depending on the features of the company you choose, teachers may even be able to upload assignments to webpages. At the very least, your site can include homework policies, discipline policies, upcoming events and weekly newsletters. The more teachers actively use it, the more parents will use it.