Chicago Public Schools Alumni »

 

There are over 3 million living Chicago Public School Alumni. And now the Chicago Public Schools, with a helpful grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has become the only urban public school to provide an online place for these alumni to connect to the schools they attended in their youth and to others with whom they went to school.

Goals

The goals for developing the site included:

  • Collect and display historical information about the schools, students and staff.
  • Share information about alumni groups and activities.
  • Provide an easy way for current staff to identify and engage alumni in support of the school.
  • Establish a new model for organizing a large body of alumni, primarily relying on the community building aspects of the internet and user generated content.
  • Provide a non-commercial way to connect with former classmates and schools.
  • Encourage loyalty towards and support for the Chicago Public Schools.

Results

Within the site, every school has its own home page and a set of tools that facilitates re-building their relationship to the school and to other alumni. These tools include an alumni forum that enables:

Shared stories
  • The place for registered alumni to share memories, upload photos, reminisce about favorite teachers, or respond to postings by other Alumni.
    • Honor Roll
    • Recognized Achievement
    • Distinguished Alumni
    • Chicago Public School leaders
    Alumni news
    • A place for registered alumni to share news about reunions, alumni events, and personal milestones

Having helped with the original funding proposal request, Duo Consulting was invited to participate in the development of this unique website. Everything from the functionality to the domain name, CPSalumni.org, was hammered out in a series of comprehensive meetings involving a broad group of CPS staff, citizen volunteers, consultants working pro bono together with the Duo Consulting staff.

The site was built using Drupal, an open source content management platform. Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal supports a variety of websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites such as CPSalumni.org.

View the site »