The township’s vibrant community of alumni has gotten the attention of the school district, which is introducing a virtual alumni network program for passionate former Pirates.
“We started investigating this idea about a year ago,” Cinnaminson school district Data Systems Coordinator Kathryn Esaia said. “Superintendent Stephen Cappello was the one who really first suggested it before I came into the district in March. When I came in, I started investigating different platforms that we could use to host.”
Esaia, Cappello and Kimberly Kelly were among the small collective that got the network off the ground. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of the operation, Esaia and Kelly were two of the project’s curators. An extensive process to find the right platform for the network resulted in the choice of Graduway.
“We decided on the network in May, and our first implementation of the network was at the end of June, with the Class of 2022, which had just graduated from the high school,” Esaia said. “We finally settled on Graduway because it had everything that we wanted.
“It’s more of a social media-type of experience,” she added. “Our users can go on, be a part of their graduating group, interact with alumni and receive news from the district.”
While in beta testing, the network was rolled out a bit later to the 2022 class and plans are already in place to attract the Class of 2023. District staffers who are also alumni have used the network over the past seven to 10 days as part of the rollout.
Early impressions and reactions to the alumni network have been positive and in just under two weeks, the interaction rate has been impressive.
“Another thing is that we have a job-posting site within the platform, as well,” Esaia expained. “Currently, this is just being used by the district to post district job openings, but we hope to open this up to our alumni at some point so they can post their available job opportunities as well.”
The network rollout has been promoted through word of mouth and social media in the district and area community. To join or learn more, link to the school district website at https://www.cinnaminson.com/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=2818497&type=d&pREC_ID=2362412
