PTAs and booster clubs run on volunteers, and volunteers change. Officers rotate out, kids graduate, and the person who "knew how the website worked" moves on. That's why a school group's website has different needs from a regular business site.
I'm Taylor Pace, a Richmond, VA web designer with 11 years in business. I've built sites for Tuckahoe Elementary & Middle PTA and for the Douglas S. Freeman athletic boosters, and this checklist reflects that work. Use it to check your own site or to plan a new one.
1. Start with the people who visit
Think about who uses your site: parents looking for a date or a sign-up link, new families figuring out how to join, sponsors, and volunteers. If the site answers their questions quickly, it's working.
2. The basics checklist
Essentials every PTA or booster site should have:
- A clear name and purpose. Which school or team you support, and what the group does, in a sentence or two.
- Contact information. A real email address people can reach, ideally a role-based one such as president@ or info@, not a personal inbox.
- A calendar of upcoming events. Keep it current, and remove events that have passed.
- How to join or volunteer. Make it easy to find and easy to act on.
- How to give or pay. Membership dues, spirit wear, fundraiser donations, or sponsorships: whichever you use, make the path obvious.
- Meeting information. When and where you meet, and where families can read minutes or announcements.
- Officer or board list, if your group wants to share it. Check with your members first about what they're comfortable having public.
Nice to have:
- A page for sponsors or business supporters.
- Photos from events (check your school's photo policies first, especially for images of students).
- A simple news or updates section.
- A link to the school's own site.
3. Keep it current, because that's where most sites fail
An out-of-date site hurts you more than a plain one. Before each school year, I'd suggest:
- Reviewing every page for last year's dates, names, and links.
- Updating the officer list.
- Testing every form and payment button yourself.
- Removing events that have passed.
Put it on someone's calendar. A recurring reminder works better than good intentions.
4. Plan for turnover
This is the most important item on the list. Ask yourself:
- Who owns the domain name and website account? It should belong to the organization, registered under an email the group controls, not one volunteer's personal account.
- Where are the logins stored, and does more than one person know?
- Is there a handoff plan when officers change?
- Can a non-technical volunteer update it? I build on Squarespace partly for this reason: updating text, photos, and events is something most people can learn without coding.
If the answer to any of these is "I'm not sure," fix that first.
5. Make it work on a phone
Most parents will check your site on their phones, often standing in a parking lot or waiting in a pickup line. Open your site on your own phone and try to find the next event, the volunteer sign-up, and the contact email. If that's frustrating, it's frustrating for everyone else too.
6. Think about privacy
Be careful with anything involving children or personal information:
- Don't post student names or photos without checking your school's and group's policies.
- Don't publish personal phone numbers or home addresses.
- Keep member lists and sensitive documents off public pages.
7. Make payments and sign-ups simple
If you collect money or sign-ups online, test the process start to finish as a first-time parent would. Is it obvious what you're paying for? Does the buyer get a confirmation? Does the right volunteer get notified?
Common mistakes
- Too much on the homepage. Pick the three or four things people need most and lead with them.
- Old PDFs as the main way of sharing information. They're hard to read on phones and easy to forget to update. Put key information directly on the page.
- No one in charge. Name a website volunteer, and a backup.
- Treating the site as a one-time project. A website needs a little regular attention to stay useful.
Where to go from here
You don't need a big budget or a complicated site. You need the right information, kept up to date, in a place that more than one person can manage.
If you'd like help figuring out what your group's site needs, I'll review it for free.
Get a Free Website Audit
Send me your PTA or booster club site and I'll go through it with this checklist. You'll get straightforward notes on what's working and what to fix first, with no pressure.
Request your Free Website Audit →
You can also call me at (804) 426-1226 or email taylorpace@gmail.com.
— Taylor Pace, Richmond, VA
