Hello Washington Oak Staff:

      My name is Bob Petrarca. My wife, Pam is the current PTA treasurer and my three children attend Washington Oak. I have 14 years' experience as an IT software developer including SQL (standard query language) database and web application development. I am pleased to volunteer to be the webmaster for this site and look forward to working with you!!!

      I use Microsoft's new Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition software to maintain this site. It's available for FREE at the link posted on this page.

      If anyone is interested in learning more about website design, HTML (hyper-text markup language) or the Visual Web Developer 2008 software, I'd be happy to offer some small group instruction in those areas.

      The links I put out on my page are for help and information for everyone. Some linked sites may contain banners, adds and links to other sights. In putting these links on my page, unless otherwise stated, I am neither endorsing or advertising for these sites or anything they link to.

      I know that not everyone is a website expert so I have put together this guide to assist everyone, including me. Together, our goal should be to make this site a user friendly tool that will benefit the entire Washington Oak community.

      (1) I'm probably stating the obvious, but first and foremost this is an elementary school website so please assist me in keeping the content relevant & appropriate.

      (2) My primary goal is to keep the common areas of the site updated with current content - events, menus, calendars, etc. I will look to the staff to assist in providing me timely input in order to meet that goal. If at all possible, please e-mail any input or provide it in electronic format. The less I have to "fat-finger" changes, the less chance there is of introducing errors.

      (3) Please feel free to e-mail me with any corrections in spelling, grammar, incorrect links, etc. Any major formatting or content changes to the common areas need to be run through Dr. Raptakis so we insure that the changes are benefitting everyone.

      (4) I am not employeed by the Coventry School Department or the Town of Coventry so I only have access to the server area that houses our website. If you are experiencing any technical difficulties, can't access the site, etc, please contact technical support as you normally would.

      (5) Every grade teacher has a folder & page set up for them in the following directory: http://schools.coventryschools.net/wo/staff/webpages. Your folder is [lastname]_[firstname] and your page in that folder is [lastname]_[firstname].htm. The first and last names in the folder and page names are how they appear in the staff directory pages. Those teachers having a pre-existing website are linked to those sites as requested.

      Anyone who does not have a page and would like one on the Washington Oak site, please e-mail me and I will get that set up for you. Anyone wishing to create a webpage/site outside of the Washington Oak site, please provide me a link to your page/site and I will redirect your link to that page/site.

      Your page is yours to update and edit as you please. I have put markers on the page to indicate where to place your content. This is only a starting space and may be expanded to any size. The two things I ask are A) please keep your content between those markers so as not to overwrite the page header and links and, B) please store any pictures, images, music, etc that you use on your page in your folder and link them to your page from there. This will avoid anyone overwriting files and keep all your work in your own folder.

      Even though this is not a commercial website, please insure that any content, pictures, images, etc that you use on your page are either royalty-free and not copyrighted or properly referenced. It is very easy to go to a website, see something you like and downloaded it, especially pictures, music and GIFs (the animated pictures). If the item contains a watermark, has the artist or photographer's name associated with it, asks for a fee or specifically says that it is copyrighted then please do not use the item unless you pay for it or comply with the usage agreement. The worst that can happen is that we are asked to immediately take the infringed upon item down, but we want to avoid that situation if at all possible.