Case Study: The Elisabeth Morrow School

The Best of the Old and the Best of the New

For discriminating parents who value a rigorous but nurturing education, The Elisabeth Morrow School in Bergen County, NJ has an exceptional offering for elementary school through Grade Eight, after school and summer programs. Blue Iceberg created a website that conveys the school's ambience and philosophy, and is accessible to a geographically dispersed audience of prospective and current families of students. By restoring the school's charming Apple Tree emblem in full color, and creating a welcoming look and feel, Blue Iceberg captured the school's identity so precisely for the web, that we were engaged to roll it out in their printed materials and recruitment ads.

Now The Elisabeth Morrow School is working with Blue Iceberg on its internet strategy and integrated marketing to take its website to the next level of strategic communications. A first step was using the website to streamline routine operations such as distribution of applications and forms to parents by posting them on the site as downloadable PDFs. We integrated content management systems that allow non-technical staff to handle sections of the site that call for regular updates:

- "Headlines," which until now were only available to parents of current students, offer straightforward, common-sense advice and counsel for today's parents from David Lowry, Ph.D., Head of School. "Headlines" are now accessible electronically, and with an archive, to the school's website visitors. They are a "must read" for anyone who has children-- or interacts with them.

- "Classroom News" highlights the educational value of projects (such as the Kindergarten Post Office or Sixth Graders' Greek Myths), and gives teachers the opportunity to post examples of student work.

- A color-coded online Calendar and Emergency Alert can be updated as the school's schedule and weather dictate.

More recently we added video and audio to the site: - In the "See and Hear Us in Action" area, visitors get the feeling of walking the campus, hearing students play and practice outdoors, or dropping in on classes.

- The "Music & Art" section offers audio samples of the school's young musicians.

Links to pages on the site can be emailed to friends, relatives and associates. Together these initiatives are continuing to position The Elisabeth Morrow School as thought-leaders with enduring values in the field of early education. As Miss Morrow articulated when she founded the school in 1934: "I wanted to incorporate in the School the best of the old and the best of the new."