BELPRE — Belpre City Schools will look at teaming with an online app service to improve communication and modernize its brand.

The Belpre City Schools Board of Education met Monday, giving permission for Superintendent Jeff Greenley to negotiate a contract with Apptegy, a school marketing and website company.

“We’ve been talking with a vendor named Apptegy about how we approach branding and marketing,” Greenley said. “They are a company that will come in and help us retool our website and create an app that folks can energize with, and it also has built in the system, so it would be one system that does both the internet and the one-call,” where principals can send a message to all parents at the same time.

“They would help us create a better image and then would also bring over our data from our current system,” he said.

Greenley said the integrated system would allow principals and administrators to use a single app to post announcements to various social media platforms, the district web site, and send messages directly to parents in one step.

“It seems like a user-friendly device,” he said.

Greenley said the cost of the service will be about $1,000 more annually than the district’s current online and one-call services. He said there also would be some one-time costs of switching systems.

Greenley said final costs will be negotiated and brought to the board for approval.

Board members said they believe a simplified system and updated look would be worth the added cost.

“I’d like to see things current” on the district’s site, said board President Cathy O’Donnell.

“We’ve had a design that we’ve had for a while, and it could use some freshening up,” Greenley said.

Michael Erb can be reached at merb@newsandsentinel.com.