High school "clicks" have taken on a new meaning.

In an Internet age, it isn't enough to just have a school district Internet site that highlights next Monday's lunch menu.

The virtual world is so much more than tater tots, and technology directors such as Maria Borkowski can't wait to show it off.

Mrs. Borkowski has been on the job for six months as the South Allegheny School District's director of technology. One of the first things she set out to do was to modernize the district's Web site -- www.southallegheny.org -- which had last been refreshed in 2004.

Not to be critical, but it was outdated.

"There were kids who graduated four years ago still listed in activities," she said. "With every click, you were further away from accurate and updated information."

It's a fairly common story among area schools, actually. Establishing Web sites, which can be designed in-house or hosted by outside companies, is no easy task.

Updating the content, such as the week's upcoming events, snow delays, news of teacher awards, can be time-consuming. For many districts, until recently, there was no clear path of delegation to decide who should be doing the work.

At least two area school districts -- Baldwin-Whitehall and Keystone Oaks -- are in the process of revamping their Web sites.

"We have a major design change in the works," said Tim Winner, Baldwin-Whitehall's director of technology.

The trend toward a content management system, or CMS, means news, photos, menus, school calendars, etc. can be updated more easily by the people who have direct access to it.

An athletics department secretary, for example, would have access to the system and could update last night's basketball scores instead of having to pass that information down a chain of command to the webmaster.

"It causes a bottleneck," Mr. Winner said of the current method. He said he is in the process of developing several options he'll eventually present to the school board.

The CMS approach is on display through Mt. Lebanon (www.mtlsd.org), Upper St. Clair (www.uscsd.K12.pa.us) and Bethel Park (www.bpsd.org) sites.

"You go to Mt. Lebanon's site and click on the calendar, and you see events for any given building, or maybe just athletics ... on the fly it tells you what you want to see," said Mr. Winner.

"A good Web site doesn't have to have flashy graphics, but people want to get the basic information and don't want to need too many clicks to get it," said Vicki Flotta, Bethel Park School District's director of communications.

It's staggering to consider what can be done on an interactive site. Ray Berrott, Upper St. Clair's director of technology, began what he believes was one of Pennsylvania's first school district sites in 1996, with the help of some tech-savvy kids at the high school.

It started with basic school information and has leaped ahead to the point where Mr. Berrott would like to have streaming video content of everything from school board meetings to the USC school play.

"We're expanding our Web site, adding blogs, photo libraries, podcasts. We're experimenting a lot right now. Our CMS allows us to have that functionality to do those things."

Mt. Lebanon's Web site sports a link to its high school renovation blog.

"We launched that as part of being able to 'build out' your Web site. We use it as a way to gain feedback from the community," said Cissy Bowman, the district's director of communications and webmaster.

One of the links in South Allegheny's home page is for the birds ... literally. Second-grade teacher Audrey Aubrecht had set up a bird feeder outside her classroom and thought it might be cool to have a webcam there.

"It started as a summer project, we were out there drilling through brick and running cable. It was hard to get up and running, but it's been very successful," Ms. Borkowski said.

She even learned something about the habitat of birds: "I thought we were getting in late on it, that the birds would all be gone [flying south in the fall] but there's been a lot of them."

The BirdCam refreshes its image every three seconds. Ms. Aubrecht secured funds for the camera through a grant.

A good district Web site utilizes an Intranet as well. Teachers can have individual pages listing assignments and grades -- Upper St. Clair doesn't mail home report cards anymore, it's online -- through password-protected links.

Edline is a popular program that allows subscribers to monitor individual students' progress in the classroom. Bethel Park and Seton-LaSalle high schools are among those using it.

Webmasters in area districts fall into two groups: the technology directors and the communications directors.

"At first it was a technology issue here," said Jim Cromie, Keytone Oaks' director of communications. "But over time, they started viewing it more as an opportunity to communicate with the public."

Technology director Kathleen Clark oversees the current Web site but Mr. Cromie will eventually be responsible for its content.

"We're looking around [at Web design companies]. One of the directives we're giving companies that have vied for our services is we want to make it simple for anyone to update [the site].

"Entering things should be as easy as editing a Microsoft Word document."

West Mifflin Area School District communications director Robyn Tedesco said they're considering an update to the system that will add flexibility.

"I think most users are looking forward to an upgrade" Mrs. Tedesco said.

Even with secretaries and teachers and coaches updating their own particular sections of a Web site, monitoring can be time-consuming.

"There are days I might spend two or three hours just on the Web," said Mrs. Flotta.

And being webmaster sometimes means being the person who gets one of the first pre-dawn calls on snow days.

"The superintendent calls between 5 and 5:30 [a.m.] to get that out there," Mrs. Borkowski said.

"They call [technology director] Lee Cristofano at home, and within two or three clicks, he's got it up on the Web site, God bless him," Mrs. Flotta said, laughing.

Technology doesn't come cheap, but most school boards recognize the importance of an up-to-date Web site that brings the district together as an online community.

SchoolWires is a popular company that sells a template-based system. The program's ease of use is a big selling point. Pittsburgh-based Management Science Associates (MSA) is another successful company.

Beyond paying for design services -- which might range from $10,000 to $30,000 -- there is the cost of webhosting services.

"There are companies out there that will host it for you on a subscription basis, maybe $15,000-$25,000 a year," Mr. Cromie said.

But districts can find cost-effective options by taking the do-it-youself approach once things are up and running.

Student privacy is a big issue with school Web sites. What seems innocuous in a print newsletter that will be sent only to the homes of families in the district -- third-graders, identified in a photo from a field trip -- might raise a red flag online.

Many webmasters won't use surnames for a photo, or will just list names in no particular order with group photos.

Upper St. Clair has parents sign a photo release that includes both paper and online identification of students.

"On one hand, you might say it's no different than a school magazine, but it is different," Mr. Cromie said.

"It's a delicate issue; we want to promote them but we want to protect them."