Watkins Mill High School and webmaster Tobias Gelston were recognized for having the best high school web site in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) at the third annual Best of the MCPS Web awards ceremony on April 25.

The awards recognize sites for excellence in web communications and are judged according to criteria for content, structure, design, and functionality. Winners are chosen by their fellow webmasters, nearly 1,000 school system staff, students, and parent volunteers. The purpose of the awards program is to promote and reward excellence and to encourage improvement in school and office web communications that serve students, parents, staff, and community.

Speaking at the ceremony, Christopher Barclay, member of the Board of Education and former parent volunteer webmaster, told webmasters that their work is very important to schools and families and thanked them for their contribution of time and expertise.

Aggie Alvez, director of Communications, told webmasters that the MCPS web continues to experience strong growth as a communications medium for the school system, registering a record 17 million page views in March.

Winners in other categories were:

Middle School: John T. Baker - Christopher W. Lloyd, webmaster
Elementary School: Laytonsville - Nancy Wooten, parent volunteer webmaster
Office/Department: Employee and Retiree Service Center - Elaine Freedman, webmaster
Project/Initiative: Montgomery County Media Festival - James Blake, webmaster

A new category recognizing student contributions to the success of school web sites was added this year. Two high schools tied for the Student Contribution Award:

Sherwood High School, Blake Savadow, student webmaster for the school web site
Winston Churchill High School, student web team, the Churchill athletics web site

Also recognized during the awards ceremony were “Web Builders,” staff who make critical contributions to the development and maintenance of the MCPS web.

Roland Ikheloa, chief of staff, Board of Education
Bob Straus, systems engineer, Directory Services, Office of Information and Organizational Systems
Michael Warner, media specialist, Forest Oak Middle School
Brian Eichenlaub, resource teacher, Paint Branch Middle School
Kerri Hennelly, teacher, Highland Elementary School
Kelly Reider, former assistant principal, Highland Elementary School

The MCPS web – http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org – is a mega-site of hundreds of smaller web sites for schools and offices maintained by almost 1,000 webmasters. The site includes newsfeeds, content in five non-English languages, live and on-demand webcasts, podcasts, a directory of all 20,000 employees, and more. The site is managed by Web Services in the Department of Communications.

For more information, see the links below.