2011 SchoolE Award Winners

The nominations have been sent, sites judged, the votes cast & validated and now we’re proud to announce the 2011 SchoolE Award Winners!

Small
Lexington City Schools



Medium
York County Public Schools



Large
Clear Creek ISD


Congratulations to these districts and thanks to all the districts who participated! Also a big thanks to everyone who helped make this year's awards happen.

Prizes
Each winning district will receive the following prizes:

• Video review of district site by Nick Denardis.
  Nick will be reviewing the top district in each category. As host of his EDU Checkup video blog he reviews education websites through the eyes of a first time visitor, while critiquing the design, information architecture and code of the sites. Keep a look out on the blog and Twitter for links to these videos when they’re done!
• Full Feedback Analysis of Website
• Tons of exposure
  In addition to the media exposure of the event, winning districts will be featured in a press release to major media outlets that include national and regional newspapers and news sources, targeted both to your geographical area and nationally. Winners will also be featured heavily within Social media and networking sites, such as Twitter (@allofek12), Blogger, Facebook, focused on the K-12 sector.A badge to proudly display on their district website
• And More....

Recap of Voting
The voting round ended up being a total of 6 weeks and the districts really took advantage of every single one of those weeks. The competition started out strong with Brownsville, Rockingham, and Lexington being the category leaders.

In the Medium category Rockingham came out ready to win with over 1,000 votes in the first week - that’s more votes than they had nominations! Overall the category maintained their momentum all throughout voting. There was so much competition and many lead changes within this category that you never know what district might steal the #1 position. York County had been on Rockingham’s tail since week 2 of voting and finally surpassed them for the #1 position in week 4. Their victory was a little short-lived; Rockingham came back the next week and with over 1,000 votes in one day, they regained the title. But York hadn't been too far behind since. When voting ended Rockingham was in the lead, but once the votes were validated York was so close behind they ended up in the first place position! Oxnard Union High, Upper Darby, and Independence 30 we also strong competitors. While they didn’t see quite the vote count of the lead districts, the competition for 3rd place was definitely worth watching.

Districts in the Large category had their fair share of competition as well, but it didn’t start until later on. It seemed no one was going to give Brownsville or Keller ISD any trouble until week 3 when Clear Creek started receiving votes in droves, providing both schools with competition and stealing the #1 spot. Although Brownsville was never able to steal back that position, they stayed strong and kept up with Clear Creek’s voting. Both districts put forth a lot of effort in this competition!

Small districts started off the competition slowly, but they surely moved their way on up in votes. Lexington City and Zachary Community were the front runners in this category. Once they hit over 500 votes their competition was only with each other. These two districts changed #1 position for the category almost weekly until the last two weeks of voting showed a landslide of votes from Zachary Community, which put them further ahead than they had ever been before. At the end of voting Zachary Community seemed to be the winner but after a validation of all the votes Lexington came out on top! With these two districts it was a close call! They should both be proud though, their overall vote counts were in the same range as Large category winner Clear Creek!

Exposure
With this year’s awards every district is a winner! The exposure districts have received has been phenomenal! The SchoolE site has seen page views from 64 countries around the world and of all the page views 75% of them were unique visits!

SchoolE has also gained exposure in the news. Local newspapers and radio stations have been doing stories on the awards and finalists such as K2 Radio in Casper, WY and The Ledger in Lakeland, FL. and Daily Press in Newport News, VA.

As well as news articles, SchoolE press releases have been featured on a number of educational blogs and sites such as eSchool News. The districts were very proud of their finalist statuses as well, they displayed their finalists badges on their sites and issued press releases about the awards. Here are just a few of the many press releases done by schools- Keller ISD, Clear Creek ISD, and North Mason SD.

In Closing
This year’s SchoolE Awards was a great success! So many schools were dedicated to giving their district site the recognition it deserved. It’s so awesome to see communities come together to support their schools.

Although the awards for this year are over, your part is not! Please let us know about any suggestions, comments, or questions you’ve had about the competition. Leave us a comment on the SchoolE homepage and tell us what you liked, didn’t like, or would like to change. We listen to every single one - suggestions from last year helped us make this year’s awards even better and that’s what we want to see with next year as well!

Thanks again to all the districts, everyone who nominated and voted, our amazing judging panel, and everyone who helped with the awards along the way.

Make sure to keep an eye out for Nick’s video reviews and check back for more information on this year’s awards and next years!

Here’s hoping to another great year of SchoolE Awards in 2012!

SchoolE Voting Now CLOSED (May 12, 2011 at 5 PM EST)

**This blog was posted yesterday, but Blogger was DOWN! Grrr!**

SchoolE voting ended as of 5 PM EST on May 12, 2011. What an exciting voting round it’s been! There has been a ton of competition, 100+ lead position changes, districts with remarkably high vote counts, tens of thousands of votes cast and more than 55,000 SchoolE website hits.

Thanks to all who participated! Every vote and nomination led this year to being the biggest and best SchoolE Awards yet. The voting round is by far the most important round, not only because it decides the award winners, but because it shows what the awards are really about - district websites with strong community support!

Remember that the votes and standings you see on the website are based on unvalidated vote counts. That means positions can and will change once votes are validated, so don’t start celebrating too early. Here are the unvalidated standings as of 5 PM EST on May 12.



I’m sure all the districts are excited for us to announce the official award winners tomorrow, but meanwhile check out these awesome news articles about the SchoolE Awards and two of the finalists. You can listen to or read the stories on K2 Radio in Casper, WY or from The Ledger in Lakeland, FL. The exposure districts have received for this year's awards has been phenomenal! Every district is coming out a winner with all the attention from not only across the United States, but internationally as well - more than 60 countries have viewed the SchoolE site!

While voting may be over, your part in the awards is not! Please let us know about any suggestions, comments, or questions you’ve had about the competition. Go to the Interact page of the SchoolE page and write us a comment.

The official 2011 SchoolE Award Winners will be announced tomorrow, May 13th. The time is still to be determined so keep an eye out!

Good Luck!

SchoolE Update: One Final Week to Vote

If you missed the announcement earlier this week, the SchoolE Awards voting round has been extended until May 12th. That's a whole extra WEEK of voting so take advantage of it. As of now, it looks like the 2nd place districts in each category could really take advantage of the extra time. The competition is so close, this extra week is going to keep us on the edge of our seats until the winners are announced Friday. So since voting was pushed back we'll get some logistics out of the way first.

• Voting will end Thursday, May 12th at 5 PM EST
• Winners will be announced on Friday, May 13th (time TBA)

Remember that the standings you see now are based on unvalidated vote counts, so positions can change once we close voting and validate the votes. At the end of voting on Thursday, don't celebrate your win or defeat just yet, wait until the winners are officially announced! In the nomination round we did see position changes once they were validated, and the same thing may happen with voting as well.

This week there has been an insane amount of voting! Both Rockingham Co. and York Co. have reached over 4,000 votes. WOW! Their voting has been non-stop all week. While Rockingham is still in first place, York County is working hard to keep up with them. On Tuesday when Rockingham passed the 4,000 vote mark, York soon caught up. These two districts have been neck and neck the entire voting round and the battle is driving their vote counts way up. With the extra week, I wouldn't be surprised if they each receive over 6 or 7 thousand votes...or more.

The Small districts have really increased their game in these past few weeks of voting. In the beginning their vote count wasn't too impressive, but this week Zachary Community took over and now holds the first place position. With almost 2,000 votes, their vote count is in the same range as the #1 district in the Large category Clear Creek. Second place Lexington City isn't too far behind either with just over 1,000 votes. Lexington can really use this extra week to catch up with Zachary, these two schools rotate 1st and 2nd place positions almost every week, but this is the week that both of them need to go all out.

In the Large district category, Brownsville still can't seem to get ahead of Clear Creek. They have been right behind Clear Creek since being knocked to the #2 position but haven't been able to pull off a #1 position steal just yet. Although they're about 500 votes behind I don't anticipate them giving up to easy. They have been a very big contender throughout the whole competition including nomination rounds, so I wouldn't be surprised if they give Clear Creek some stiff competition in these upcoming days.

While at the moment the really exciting competitions are between the top 2 schools in each category, that doesn't mean that the other districts aren't voting as well. Anything could happen in this final week of voting- including an underdog coming up to steal the #1 position! So to all districts- keep voting! The competition isn't over yet.

This extra week sure is going to make things interesting so keep an eye out, take advantage of the school profile pages, rally your district's community, use all the voting tools (E-mail, Facebook, and Twitter) and vote! If you have any questions or comments contact us at the SchoolE Interact page or to cheer on your district leave a comment on your district's profile. Keep an eye out for the winners on the SchoolE site, next Friday the 13th could be your districts lucky day.

SchoolE Extends Voting Deadline to May 12

Due to popular demand and a LOT of requests, we have extended the SchoolE Awards voting deadline to May 12, 2011, giving you an extra week to rally your community and get your district more votes. This has been a VERY exciting voting stage with a lot of close competition, a lot of lead changes and big rivalries blossoming. The SchoolE Awards Team is SO excited to see which district comes out on top in each category.

Click here to see the current standings, and here to leave a comment about the contest or your district.

Voting will now end on Thursday, May 12, 2011 at 5 PM EST. Winners will be announced the following day.

Congratulations to all districts thus far - and be sure to take advantage of this extra week!

SchoolE Update: One Week Left of Voting!

We are in the final week of voting for the SchoolE Awards! Voting will end on Thursday, May 5th at 5 PM EST and winners will be announced on Friday the 6th (time TBA). Remember that voting is open to everyone, so they don't have to be a direct part of your district to cheer you on and vote. Talk to your friends and family to help your district's website get the recognition you feel it deserves.

There have been so many close races throughout this year's competition. The top two districts in each category are within 350 votes of each other, making it really anybody's game. Voting this week has been intense, with a ton of lead changes, and the total vote count is now almost 14,500 meaning there were 4,500 votes this week!

Most of the intense voting in the contest has come from the Medium category. Rockingham has been working overtime this week to not only steal the #1 position from Polk County, but also to reach over 3,000 votes! Rockingham called its community to action on Tuesday when it overtook Polk County, casting almost 1,000 votes in one day! Rockingham can't get too comfortable yet, though. York County is right behind them, needing less than 350 votes to tie. The competition in this category doesn't end there. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th positions are battling it out as well. Although Upper Darby currently leads the pack, Oxnard Union High and Independence are both within 65 votes of the 3rd place position. While they have quite a way to go to catch up with Rockingham's 3,600+ votes, anything is possible in this last week of voting!

In the Large category, Clear Creek and Brownsville have been battling it out, but it seems that this week their voting has really slowed down. Clear Creek hasn't had more than 25 votes this week and Brownsville no more than 30. With these two districts so close in vote counts they need to keep up the voting to fight for 1st place!

The voting in the smaller categories has been a bit stagnant most of the week. Zachary Community has kept a well-maintained lead over Lexington City but just today that's changed. Lexington has been voting all day to come within 30 votes of the category leader. With this new competition and the fact that the overall vote count in the Small category is rather low compared to the other categories, this next week may be full of surprises.

Here are the Top 3 districts in each category based on [unvalidated] vote counts as of Thursday afternoon:

Large:
1. Clear Creek
2. Brownsville
3. Polk County

Medium:
1. Rockingham Co.
2. York Co.
3. Upper Darby

Small:
1. Zachary Community
2. Lexington City
3. North Mason


There's only one week left so don't let your districts voting fade out now! Even just one day of voting could knock your district out of it's position. Remember to keep an eye out for the announced winners on Friday, May 6th!

Good luck to all the districts!

SchoolE Update: Week 4 of Voting

It's the end of Week 4 which means there's still about two weeks left to vote for your district, but this week the districts have been acting like they're in the final minutes of the game. We had almost 2,500 votes this week bringing us to over 10,000 total votes.

The Large Districts are still bringing their A-game this week. Though Clear Creek's voting has dwindled a bit compared to the landslide of votes they had last week, they've still managed to maintain their lead over Brownsville for the #1 spot. Polk County and Keller ISD are still a bit behind the two leaders of the category, but have been within 100 votes of each other all week.

The Medium category is where it's at this week. Just today York County upset Rockingham County for the #1 spot! Currently York County is only 60 votes ahead of Rockingham. While York has been very active in voting, it’s the voting in the past two days that have really made a difference for them. This is the second big upset of the competition, just last week Clear Creek took the #1 spot from Brownsville in the Large category. There are no clear front runners anymore in these two categories; it will be interesting to see how it all plays out!

Upper Darby and Oxnard Union High are still battling it out for that 3rd position. All week they’ve been within 10 votes of each other and today Upper Darby has only a 3 vote lead over Oxnard. But both need to watch out for Independence 30. They haven't been much of a competition so far, but since the Thursday they've manage to almost catch up with Upper Darby and Oxnard. Keep watching out for them, they're well on their way to move even farther up in this category.

The small category hasn't been idle either. While the vote counts aren't as high as the other two categories, the districts have slowly started gaining more votes. Competition is fierce in this category as well. Basehor-Linwood and University Academy were tied with an even 100 votes each on Wednesday, but Basehor came out on top at the end of the week - currently they are only 16 votes ahead of University Academy. Although the top two Small category districts, Zachary Community and Lexington City, have a well maintained lead over the other schools, with the vote count so small in this category it's anybody's game.

Here are the Top 3 Districts from each category based on [unvalidated] vote counts:

Large
1. Clear Creek ISD
2. Brownsville ISD
3. Polk County School

Medium
1.York County
2. Rockingham County
3. Upper Darby

Small
1. Zachary Community
2. Lexington City
3. North Mason SD


Most of the votes have come from teachers, parents, and staff but remember your community and students can vote too. There are a few students voting, but they can be your district's driving force! Encourage them to show their school pride and vote for their district's website!

There are less than 2 weeks left to vote! Now's the time to rally your community if you want a chance to win!

SchoolE Update: Week 3 of Voting

The competition in SchoolE has been nuts this week! After last weeks wake-up call the Large districts are getting their heads in the game. On Thursday, Clear Creek ISD surpassed Keller ISD and Polk County. Near the end of the day they knocked Brownsville out of the #1 position for Large districts – a position they’ve held from the start of voting. There’s definitely going to be a lot more competition in the Large districts than we thought.

The Medium districts have two great competitions worth keeping an eye on. Rockingham still remains in the #1 spot, but York County is only a couple of hundred votes behind. York has been very active throughout the competition, but toward the end of this week voting for their district has died down. While Rockingham hasn’t had quite the weekly vote count as before they’re still receiving a good number of votes every day. York is going to have to push themselves if they want a chance at that #1 spot.

But they should look out for the current 3rd and 4th place districts - Oxnard Union High and Upper Darby. These schools have been battling for 3rd place all week, but currently Oxnard has come out ahead. Although still over 400 votes behind the top 2 schools, the close competition between these two schools might just drive up their vote counts.

The total SchoolE vote count is now over 7,600 - almost 3,000 votes this week alone. Three districts have even reached over 1,000 votes– Rockingham, York County, and Clear Creek. Keep it up districts!

The current overall voting standings based on [unvalidated] vote counts are:

1. Rockingham Country Public Schools (Medium)
2. York County Public Schools (Medium)
3. Clear Creek ISD (Large)
4. Brownsville ISD (Large)
5. Oxnard Union High (Medium)

Cheer on your school by commenting on Interact page and also your districts profile page under ‘District Comments’. Fans of the districts have been posting thanks and links to articles about their districts making it into the final round.

Also since we're getting even closer to the end, remember the new prize for this year's SchoolE Award recipients - a video review of the winner's district site by Nick Denardis! Nick will be reviewing the top district in each category. As host of his EDU Checkup video blog he reviews education websites through the eyes of a first time visitor, while critiquing the design, information architecture and code of the sites.

Keep your eyes on the prize and keep voting for your favorite District website!

SchoolE Update: Week 2 of Voting

It's week 2 of SchoolE Awards voting and things are starting to heat up (along with the weather)! The total vote count is over 4,800. Many districts that had little to no activity really stepped it up this week, especially Oxnard Union High. The district was voting non-stop on Thursday, bringing them to 4th place in the Medium category, very close behind Upper Darby. Voting runs like that make the competition exciting! It's awesome to see a school go from relatively no votes to almost 500 in a day.

So far the Medium category districts are rocking the voting round. They've accounted for more than 3,300 of the 4,800+ votes so far- that's almost 70%! The Large districts still haven't quite gotten their votes up, they've only received 886 total votes - less than some of the Medium districts had alone. I keep expecting the other Large districts to step up their game, but it doesn't look like any of those districts are going to give Keller ISD or Brownsville any trouble. Where's the school spirit in large districts? With so many people in their communities they should be blowing everyone else out of the water!

Right now, the overall voting standings based on [unvalidated] vote counts are:
1. Rockingham Country Public Schools (Medium)
2. York County Public Schools (Medium)
3. Oxnard Union High (Medium)
4. Brownsville ISD (Large)
5. Upper Darby SD (Medium)

Clearly, the medium districts are extremely competitive, so it's going to be exciting to see what happens over the next few weeks.

Remember that this year there are three categories:

Large - Enrollment > 25,000
Medium - Enrollment 7001 -24,999
Small - Enrollment < 7,000
That means this year there will be a total of three winners! One from each of these categories.

Make sure to check out the Interact Page on the SchoolE website. There you can cheer for your district, ask any questions (we always respond!), or give credit to whoever deserves it for making your site the best it can be! Also remember voting is open to everyone, so if you believe that your site has something special such as a feature or design tell everyone about it! Cheer your school on and tell everyone why you believe your district's site is the best.

Good luck to all the school districts!

SchoolE Update: Week 1 of Voting

It may be April Fool's Day, but there's no joke here (the jokes are here, here and here). Since we opened voting on Monday, the SchoolE Awards has received far more than 3,000 votes. What a great week to kick off voting. No time has been wasted in voting for the 21 finalist school districts. Votes have been coming in at all hours of the day; today's votes started at 3 AM and haven't slowed down since. Methods of voting have also been very diverse. Unlike with nominations where we saw mostly e-mails, more voters are using Facebook and Twitter - which also helps the districts spread the word!

As of now the category leaders are Brownsville ISD, Rockingham County, and Lexington City. Rockingham County has especially stood out this week with over 1,000 votes - that's 1/3 of the votes so far, they're definitely in it to win it! Not too far behind is York County Public Schools. I anticipate that these two schools won't be the only ones competing for the #1 spot. Can't wait to see what next week will bring!

Make sure to visit the SchoolE website to check out the 7 finalists in each category, their district profiles, websites and most importantly to vote! Remember, voting is open to everyone. So even if your district didn't make it into the finals, vote for the district you believe has the best website. Voting will be open till May 5th so spread the word and get to voting.

There will only be one winner, so vote now!

Announcing the SchoolE Awards Finalists // Voting is OPEN!

The time has come to announce the 2011 SchoolE Awards finalists! After two weeks of judging, the 7 finalists from each category are as follows (in alphabetical order):

Large 1. Brownsville ISD 2. Clark County School District 3. Clear Creek ISD 4. Keller ISD 5. Newport News CPS 6. Polk County 7. San Bernadino City Unified

Medium 1. Independence 30 2. Natrona County School District #1 3. Oxnard Union High 4. Richland County School District 02 5. Rockingham County Schools 6. Upper Darby SD 7. York County Public Schools

Small 1. Basehor-Linwood 2. Godfrey-Lee Public Schools 3. Lexington City Schools 4. North Mason School District 403 5. St. James School 6. University Academy 7. Zachary Community School District

Congratulations to all district finalists!

There were so many great district sites this year I'm not sure how the judges did it! The judges have spent the past two weeks evaluating the top 15 districts in each category on 3 different areas: Design, Content, and Overall. Our panel of judges were able to rate these areas on multiple subcategories. Here is an example of a rubric.

Also, a big congratulations and thanks to all the schools who were nominated or made it to the semi-finalist round! Your communities definitely showed their passion for your district’s websites. Even though you didn’t make it through to the final round this year, remember there is always next year!

We’d love to give feedback to any districts who didn’t make it as finalists to help you improve your district's web presence. Please let us know if this is something you are interested in.

We’d like to encourage you to stay involved with SchoolE and vote for whichever school district you believe has the best site! You can view all the finalists profile pages (with links to their websites) on the SchoolE Awards website (http://schoole.allofe.com).

Voting is now OPEN! Make sure to spread the word to your community. This is the final round. Voting will end on May 5th, so there’s just a little over a month to vote your school to the top!

You can vote for the BEST school district website here.

GOOD LUCK!

SchoolE Nominations are Now Closed. Who are the Semi-Finalists?

Time has really flown - the SchoolE Awards nominations closed yesterday! What an exciting nomination round it’s been. This year, we received more than 7,500 nominations, which is almost 5 times more than last year! I can’t wait to see how many votes we get this year, just based on the turnout thus far. These last few weeks of nominations have been VERY busy ones, with hundreds of nominations coming in each day. We have received nominations from districts across all 50 states. It’s awesome how many people have been cheering their districts on.

Without further ado, here are the Top 15 school districts from each category that will move onto the judging round. Congrats to these school districts!

Large	Medium	Small
1. Brownsville ISD 2. Marion County School District 3. Newport News CPS 4. Fayette County 5. Prince George’s 6. San Bernardino City 7. Clear Creek ISD 8. Montgomery County 9. Chatham County 10.Fairfax County Public 11. Keller ISd 12. Polk County School District 13. Clark County 14. Elk Grove Unified 15. Kanawha County School District	1. Rockingham County 2. Independence 30 3. North Allegheny SD 4. Upper Darby SD 5. Township HSD 6. Blue Springs R-IV 7. Oxnard Union High 8. Walker County 9. Richland County 02 10. Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD 11. McAllen ISD 12. Lawrence Public Schools 13. Bradley Cty. School District 14. York County Public Schools 15. Natrona Cty. SD #1	1. Danville Independent 2. Zachary Community Schools 3. Groton School District 4. University Academy 5. New Milford 6. Lakeland District 7. Godfrey-Lee Public 8. St. James Schools 9. South Texas ISD 10. North Mason SD 11. Basehor-Linwood USD 12. Beggs Public Schools 13. Grain Valley R-V 14. Metcalfe County 15. Lexington City Schools

So what’s next?

Over the next two weeks, our Panel of Industry Experts will evaluate the district websites based on the Design, Content, and Overall presence. Our Panel of Industry Experts includes innovative leaders in areas such as educational technology, Higher Education web content, and graphic and web design.

Curious to see an example of what criteria the experts will be judging on? Check out a sample rubric here.

Judging will end on March 25 and based on the scores, only the top 7 districts in each category will move on to voting (21 districts total). We will be announcing the finalists on Monday, March 28th and after that, the voting will begin!

Voting will continue through May 5th and winners will be announced on May 6th.

Once again congrats to the 15 semi-finalists and good luck in the judging round! Make sure to keep checking out the SchoolE website for updates, district profiles, and more!

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 2/26 - 3/4

There's only one week left until SchoolE nominations close. We've received around 7000 nominations from across the country, and they just keep rolling in. In addition, the SchoolE Awards now has at least one district represented in all 50 states. Hawaii became the last state to enter the race with the Kauai Complex Area District on the island of Kauai.

The Rockingham County School District has received more than 1,000 nominations, which is pretty awesome for a medium size school! Another medium size district, Independence 30, is also not too far away from reaching 1000.

We are seeing a very surprising trend...
small > medium > large

What does this mean?

The smaller school districts are bringing in more nominations than the medium districts, and the medium districts are bringing in more than the large!

Based on the total number of nominations, smaller school districts are behind the medium-sized ones, but overall, the smaller districts have been more active. To give you a bit of perspective, the top district in the Large category, Brownsville ISD, has almost 50,000 students, but has little more than 675 nominations, whereas the second-place district in the Medium category, Independence, has less than 12,000 students and more than 800 nominations.

Pretty ironic. I guess being a larger district doesn't necessarily mean more nominations. But that also gives large districts a huge opportunity to take over the lead or at least move into the Top 15 during the last week of nominations.

One large district that has been very active this week is Marion County School District in Ocala, Fla. The district has accounted for over 50% of nominations every day since Wednesday and has moved up to the 4th-place position in overall nominations. And it doesn't seem to be done yet! I love seeing the competition that comes out toward the end of nominations.

Most of our nominations have been from teachers, faculty, staff and the community but don't be afraid to encourage your students and parents to nominate also!

Remember it's the last week for nominations. They will close on March 11th, so make sure to nominate you district now! The judges will begin scoring the websites the week after. Voting will open on March 28 for only the top district websites.

Have fun and happy nominating for this last week!

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 2/19 - 2/25

There are only 2 weeks left until SchoolE nominations close! That means school districts only have the next 2 weeks to get in as many nominations as they can to be a part of the top 15 in their category. Only the top 15 most-nominated districts in each category will move on to the judging round. If you want your school there, tell your friends, family, coworkers, students and community to nominate your district by E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, or even all 3. Don't forget that we will be validating email addresses, so any invalid addresses will be void and those nominations will NOT count.

Even if your school is in the top 15 right now, that doesn't mean it will stay that way. In the final weeks, we expect nominations to grow by thousands, so keep up that nominating! Rockingham County Schools still has the #1 spot, and they are just shy of 1000 nominations. Will any other schools reach it to 1000 nominations before the round ends?

One district that is really starting to make their move is St. James School from Alabama. They received their first nomination only last week but are looking to quickly move up - they were the most active district Thursday with over 41% of the nominations!

Before last week we hadn't even received a nomination from Alabama and now we have multiple districts competing to move on to the next round. Maybe the next state added to our competition will do the same! SchoolE had it's first nomination from Montana by Shepherd Public Schools in Shepherd, MT. Congrats to Shepherd for being the first district to nominate from Montana. With 49 states participating, that means we only have 1 more to go until we've received a nomination from ALL 50 states!

Remember that only the top 15 districts from each category will move on to the judging round. The categories are determined by the number of students enrolled in the district; they are small (less than 7000), medium (7000 - 24,999), and large (25,000 +). The number of nominations each district receives will determine the top 15 districts which will be judged by our expert judging panel. From there, only the top 7 districts from each category based on their scores from the judges will move onto the voting round, where the top district from each category based on validated vote counts will win.

Good luck and keep nominating your district!

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 2/12 - 2/18

With only 3 weeks left of the nomination round we are receiving hundreds of SchoolE nominations every day. The schools are definitely competing for their chance to proceed to the judging round. For the 2nd week in a row, Rockingham County Schools is making their presence known. They've inched their way up to the #1 spot in total nominations - beating out Texas's Brownsville ISD and Missouri's Independence 30. Rockingham took over the #1 spot in less than two weeks!

This week has been a busy one for SchoolE we've had 4 new states join the competition! We have now received nominations from every state except 2! The four new districts to first represent their states in the SchoolE awards are:


Montgomery City Schools from Montgomery, AL
Archbishop Spalding High School from Severn, MD
Litchfield School District from Litchfield, NH &
La Salle Academy from Providence, RI


Congrats to these schools - keep nominating! As Rockingham County Schools has shown, it's never too late to break into the top 10 or even the #1 spot.

The SchoolE awards are getting bigger and more active than ever! Even with only 3 weeks left in the nomination round of the competition we still expect to see thousands of more nominations to close out the round! We have received almost four times the amount of nominations than last year, so make sure to keep nominating your district by Facebook, Twitter, and E-mail to move up in the number of nominations or to maintain your position! Remember that only the top 15 schools in each category (Large, Medium, and Small School Districts) will move on to the judging round!

Take advantage of the Top District's profile pages to assess your schools position or see how many nominations you need to catch up with a district in your category!

Tell your friends, collegues and community to nominate your district for SchoolE to get the recognition your districts website deserves!

Good luck to all districts and keep up the nominating!

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 2/5 - 2/11

The SchoolE awards are rocking and rolling this week! We've been receiving hundreds of nominations all week from across the U.S., giving us almost 5,000 nominations thus far. Today alone we've received more than 500 nominations, and most of them (80% to be exact) have come from Rockingham County Schools in Eden, NC. Not only did they break into the Top 10, but they're currently in 3rd for total nominations! Remember: one day of nominating could make all the difference to get your district ahead of the rest!

We also received nominations from Academy 20 in Colorado Springs, Col., and from Aleutians East Borough School District in Sand Point, Alaska, this week, making them the first district nominations from Colorado and Alaska, respectively.

With only 4 weeks left in the nomination round don't forget that only the top 15 most-nominated districts will move on to the judging round, so it's up to you to get your district the recognition you feel it deserves.

Use these tips to increase your chances to move onto the judging round:

• Use Facebook and Twitter to nominate! Not only does this allow you to nominate up to 3 times (if you nominate via email address, too), it also posts on your Facebook and Twitter pages so your friends can see you've nominated your school district and remind them to nominate too!
• Use a SchoolE Nominate Badge for your district website. Encourage your district to put a SchoolE nominate button on the district homepage to get even more nominations - you'll find instructions on the top right corner of the Nominate page.
• Tell your students and community.The majority of nominations are coming in from teachers. Make sure to spread the word to your school staff and students, friends, family and the community to help push your district through to the next round.
• Don't Stop the Nominations. Even if your school is ahead don't stop nominating. We've seen districts with zero nominations go to the Top 5 within hours. There is no limit on how much a district can be nominated each day, so keep nominating and spreading the word to stay ahead!

Also remember that we have a few new features:

• The current Top 5 districts in each category now have "District Profiles" to help them gauge their positions, leave comments, and see how far they have to go to move up in rank: http://schoole.allofe.com/schoole/district_profiles
• See the Top 100 district map: http://schoole.allofe.com/schoole/district_map
• Don't forget the "Interact" page where you can leave comments, etc.: http://schoole.allofe.com/schoole/interact

Keep up the nominating and good luck to all districts!

Five Weeks Until SchoolE Nominations End - Where are we now?

With just five weeks left until the SchoolE Awards end, nominations are pouring in and the race is getting tight! Between 50 and 100+ nominations come in each day and the numbers are growing as we near closer to the finish line.

As of today, the top 10 school districts in terms of nominations are as follows:

1. Independence 30 (MO)
2. Brownsville ISD (TX)
3. North Allegheny SD (PA)
4. Danville Independent (KY)
5. Groton School District (CT)
6. University Academy (KS)
7. New Milford (NJ)
8. Upper Darby SD (PA)
9. Township HSD 214 (IL)
10. Zachary Community Schools (LA)
    

As you can see, the top 10 list is a diverse crowd from all over the United States. A cool thing to note: half of the top 10 schools are small school districts, and they make up for 35% of the total amount of nominations received for the top 10 nominees.

The SchoolE Awards website has received over 8,000 unique visitors and 17,000 page views with hits coming from all 50 states. Not only has the site been actively viewed in the U.S., it has also been getting international attention with more than 43 countries having viewed the SchoolE Awards site. A few other things to note:

• The majority of the nominations are coming in through e-mail. --> Let me just say, that districts should encourage nominating through Facebook and Twitter to significantly improve their odds - and increase their nominations!
  
• Votes from almost all 50 states
• We have much more than doubled the number of total nominations we received last year
  
• The majority of nominations are coming in from teachers (Why not get more students and the community more involved?)
  

Check out the new district profiles we recently added to the SchoolE Award site and let us know if you would like your district featured. To learn more about the district profiles click here.

The nominations phase for the SchoolE Awards ends March 11, 2011—so spread the word and keep up the good work! Best of luck to all participating districts!

A Closer look at SchoolE District Profiles

We've been putting in some hard work into the SchoolE Awards site and I wanted to give you all a good overview of the changes we've made and things we've added so that you can really take advantage of them!

Here's a quick overview of the brand-spankin'-new District Profiles pages (Click on the screen shot to view district profiles for the top nominees):

• How many nominations needed to move up to the next rank: this stat is in red in the top left-hand section of the page
• Recent Activity: this is the percent of nominations the district received on a given day: This stat is relative to the total amount of nominations received for that day.
  
• Association Nominations: The percentage from which nominations are coming from (i.e., administration, students, staff, parents, teachers, alumni or the community),
  
• Nomination Types: what type of nominations have been made through email addresses, Facebook and Twitter
  
• Category Rankings: ranking in the district's respective category (also shows the district's total number of nominations)
• Overall Rankings: the district's ranking overall
• District Profiles include: a screen shot of the district website, a link to the district site, and a short excerpt about the district
  
• Comments: a place for district stakeholders to leave comments
  

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 1/8 - 1/14

Yet another great week for SchoolE awards. Nominations just keep flying in; this week marks a big milestone: we've received more than 3000 nominations! The number of nominations was astounding. For the most part we've been getting one nomination at least every 10 minutes, and at a few points throughout the week we were receiving one nomination per minute.

Not only was there an astounding number of total nominations but the competition is really gearing up. Forty-five districts, old and new, have been bringing in nominations all week. They sure are making this a competitive race.

Two new states have joined the race, Chatham County Schools in Savannah, GA was the first state to join from Georgia and Salem City School District in Salem, OH was the first in Ohio.

Out of all the schools this week, two really stood out in voting. North Allegheny School District from Pittsburg, PA, had 27% of all nominations this week, quickly taking over the #1 spot for Medium districts. Brownsville ISD from Brownsville, TX kept up their voting to maintain the lead for Large districts, by accounting for 18% for the nominations this week.

The majority of the nominations are still coming in through E-mail, but remember you can also vote through your Facebook and Twitter accounts - meaning you can really nominate a district up to 3 times. Just choose either Facebook or Twitter under Step 2 on the SchoolE nomination page, log into your account and nominate! Using Facebook and Twitter also helps spread the word of the contest to ensure your district gets the most exposure possible - and increases its chance to move up in the rankings!

Happy nominating!

SchoolE Update (Week of 1/1 - 1/7)

It's been an exciting week for SchoolE votes! There are now two new leaders for both the Medium and Small categories, new states, and a record number of votes!

In the Medium category (districts with 7,000-25,000 students enrolled), a landslide of votes from Independence 30 in Independence, MO, has secured them the lead. In the Small category (districts of up to 7,000 students enrolled), not only did newcomer Danville Independent from Danville, KY, break into the top 3, this district also manged to overcome University Academy or Kansas City, MO, for the #1 spot.

These two districts accounted for 75% of the votes this week, but many other schools are starting to rack up the votes also. The competition is really taking off! It will be interesting to see what next week brings.

Five new states have joined the SchoolE nominations with districts from Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky. Bringing the SchoolE nominations much closer to the goal of receiving a nomination from every state!

What a great way to start off the new year, keep the votes coming in!

SchoolE Awards Update for Week 12/25 - 12/31

One district really stood out in the voting this week; Lexington City Schools from Lexington, NC. This district has received nominations every single day for the past week, doubling their overall votes. It seems like they are beginning to start some fierce competition versus the rest of the small school districts.

Maybe it's all the snow, but districts on the east coast accounted for 84% of the votes for the week. Sounds like other states really need to get in gear!

Is your district represented? If not, make sure to nominate your district now at http://schoole.allofe.com/nominate

Keep the nominations coming in as we roll into the new year and a new semester!

Happy New Year 2011!