SCHOOL SPOTLIGHT
Georgia Cyber Academy
Working with Finalsite
A Finalsite client for two years now, Maria Blencowe, Georgia Cyber Academy's (CGA) communications and public relations director, said she enjoys working with Finalsite for numerous reasons, but every reason circles back to the "wraparound support for their clients."
She pointed out Finalsite's, "plentiful workshops and training opportunities," and, "continual offerings of resources" that GCA and other Finalsite schools use to create better experiences for students and families.
Most recently, Blencowe attended Finalsite's School Marketing Day and District Communications Day in spring 2020.
"We ... often reference back to the content from these sessions for ideas, guidance, and suggestions for improvement," Blencowe said. "The training videos provided by the Finalsite team for platform services are also very easy to understand and are great when on-boarding new employees."
At a Glance
Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) is a statewide, tuition-free, online, accredited public charter school for students in grades K-12. GCA provides a learning environment where students are empowered to reach their full academic potential through active participation in live interactive classes and an engaging curriculum that supports individualized and differentiated student learning paths.
“Our partnership with Finalsite has heightened our ability to effectively communicate with our students, staff and families.”
MARIA BLENCOWE
COMMUNICATIONS & PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTOR
And while the virtual conferences and plentiful training resources certainly help, Blencowe pointed out the real difference-maker in working with Finalsite.
"The pinnacle of client support lies in the relationship between us and our client success manager [Gerard Gustafson]," Blencowe said. "As our main point of contact with Finalsite, our client success manager is a wonderful communicator, and is always receptive to our feedback and requests."
Streamlining websites with Composer
Blencowe said Composer, Finalsite's Content Management System (CMS), has been the most useful new addition to GCA's website as it is, "such an intuitive, easy to use platform." Of all the modules and add-ons available with Composer, Messages, Finalsite's email marketing tool, has stood out as the most useful and used for GCA.
"In particular, we enjoy the ability to track who has opened a message, what links they engaged with, and the ability to schedule messages in advance," Blencowe said.
Blencowe added that Finalsite's Mobile App has been incredibly useful due to its ability to connect directly to the website through Finalsite, making it easy to maintain and update information.
"We are in the process of setting up Finalsite Payments and Workflows and are excited about how they can further streamline our operations," Blencowe added.
Making a Positive Impact
Blencowe said Finalsite's website allows GCA to clearly organize information in a way that best serves the charter school's constituents, allowing the school to share important school-wide information through the Mobile App and Messages module.
"Finalsite also encourages us to learn more about how we can improve our online presence through training videos, workshops and blog content," Blencowe said. "Our partnership with Finalsite has heightened our ability to effectively communicate with our students, staff and families."
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