Any Themes/templates for MultiSite School PTAs?

Nobody?

I’m about to give it a try – but it will be mainly in Dutch. But that shouldn’t be a problem.
We want a front page for everyone with diary and news and then a log-in for members giving them access to minutes, members and mailing list etc.
Is that your idea too? However I can’t believe that no one has made a working PTA site before? Are you any further, @sacrophyte?

mdcleaver: I have yet to find any “templates” to speak of. I have found lots of schools/ptas that are using a smattering of home-built custom code (some of it is VERY NICE, some of it… not so much) to procuring 3rd-party pro-bono help under 301(c)(3) and still others that pay top dollar for shiny websites. There is a huge variety in platforms; php, mysql, js, wordpress, facebook, google and the proprietary stuff. It’s all over the map.

I did try to implement my own on www.ads-software.com, but found that I was quickly getting over my head with details and making it too complex. Need to simplify.

If you need help, give a holler. I don’t know jack about dutch (*grin*) and my programming skills have waned since the college years, but I am willing to at least try something.

My idea is:

Landing page:
Calendar
News
Links
Login/register
Info/Contact

Logged in

Individual members profiles
children/classes,
address/phone etc
talents

Mailing lists
class
PTA
whole school

Files (not public)
Minutes
School docs
Forms

maybe BuddyPress too?

That’s a good start. What about something to handle pictures/videos? A Donation app?

We found the most difficult part is deciding how to hook all this up with other social media (facebook, twitter, sms text messages, tumblr, dropbox, etc). WordPress has hooks for most if not all of those things, but it becomes a bit of a pain to manage it. And what if the next IT person wants to do something else? The only “solution” we have so far is that we just have to do the best we can right now and not worry about what is going to happen in 5 years.

That’s something to add to the “Public” side of things. I have been focussing on helping administer the active parents’ side. We have about 1600 kids (12-19) and 100 parent/members in the PTA.
First thing I did was disable “comments”. That’s a typical “blog” feature.

After searching endlessly for two days, scouring WP template sites, I finally Googled the words “WordPress PTA template with calendar”…and there you were. I KNEW I wasn’t the only one looking for that. I knew someone else out there was silly enough to admit they have programming skills at the PTO meeting and suddenly found themselves committed to building a school site in 2 weeks.

How did your site(s) turn out?

@jatchsion

I am still in over my head and have not progressed at all. It is sad how slowly this is moving, both on a personal scale but also on a state/national scale.

I have a new friend who does a ton of stuff with WordPress and we are working to find a compromise where the PTAs can pay him a little money (he has a professional business) and he can generate a template for the entire school district.

@sacrophyte

Ugh. Sorry to hear that. Boy, can I empathize with your plights!

I’ve found a couple of WP themes that might give us a basic skeleton for what we’re looking for (e.g. landing page, login, BuddyPress and ecomm.) Thinking I can simply use a plugin for the events calendar.

I’ve emailed a couple of the big WP design guys over at ThemeForest, begging for their advice. I’m hoping they’ll endeavor to assit us, take pity on us, since we’re volunteering for our kids’ school.

One thing has been keeping me up at night – the initial login. Our school wants the landing page with a login that will then reveal all the links to each individual teacher’s page. BuddyPress and general site login are two totally different beasts. Cant for the life of me remember how that works.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress with the folks over at ThemeForest.

Best,
J

@jatchsion Love to know what ThemeForest might be able to offer. For secure log in/file access and buddypress-like features.

it’s really unbelievable that this seemingly what one would think popular need in this country doesn’t have any templates for it. Completely mindblown.

Can anyone suggest alternatives by name (themes?)