New school website frustrates students

Over the past few months, CVHS has been transitioning from the old castrovalleyhigh.org website to a new one linked with the district at cv.k12.ca.us/cvhs. This change was made to accommodate an exciting new mobile app the district plans to deploy later this year.

“This app will provide staff, parents, and students with easy access to their school’s calendar and news feed,” said John Perry, the district director of information technology.

In 2012, Castro Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) developed a website platform for all schools, and allowed them to voluntarily participate. For years CVHS used the castrovalleyhigh.org website instead of the district’s cv.k12.ca.us domain, however the implementation of the mobile app will require all schools to be on the district platform.

The website change was for financial reasons as well. The old website required a maintenance fee of $4,200 per year, while using the district website will be cost-free for CVHS. “Those funds can now be used for other campus needs,” said Perry.

As great as these changes will be, many students and teachers are encountering problems resulting from the website change. Teachers’ cvhs.me websites were linked to the old school webpage, and as a result, no longer work.

The cvhs.me site is a URL shortener created by CVHS graduate Stephen Ou, who wanted to make teacher websites easier to access. The problem can be fixed if Ou takes on the project of re-linking teacher websites to the new school website. Meanwhile, many teachers have opted to switch to a google site or use google classroom instead.

The new site has caused much difficulty for students as well.

“It’s really confusing to navigate the website,” said junior Shefali Bhatia.

Students have called to attention the fact that many links on the new website do not actually exist, but still link back to the old webpage.

Many complaints have also been made about the format and look of the new website. “It just doesn’t look as nice,” junior Ethan Kwong added.

However, one must keep in mind that the new website is a work in progress, and the process of transferring vast amounts of data from one webpage to another is no easy feat.

For those with sentimental ties toward the old school website, fear not, because castrovalleyhigh.org will exist until the end of 2015, at which point it will be time to say goodbye for good.