Class Web Site?

You first, need to get the permission of the Teacher and grade level Chairperson and/or the Principal.

MANY MANY schools have websites per teacher, per grade.

But you also have to KNOW... the school's protocols for 'privacy'/photos of the kids, and what each parent has designated on their 'privacy' forms, to the school, per their child. And per each parent's e-mail addresses and if you can display that etc. or any other contact info.
Our school, does this each year. Privacy forms to fill out, by the parents, each year, per their child.

And, you never.... display a child's entire name, on a school based website. Per safety and privacy, protocols for minor aged, children.
Some Predators, do lurk on school websites.... and can then see the names of the kids etc. For example.

It is not the Room Mom, that decides.

Whatever you put on the 'website'.... has to be approved by the Teacher.

Shutterfly, has a way you can make a secure "invitation only" website, for only the parents of that classroom. As a tip.

Each of my kids, who are in elementary school.... their school AND individual Teachers, do have a website. And, this is how it is per protocols, at our school.

I would love to see:
Reminders about library and PE days
Classroom needs ... what is the teacher running out of?
When's the next class party and what is needed? Would love to find this out more than a few days in advance, like we do now.
Upcoming field trips
Homework
A brief summary of what they're learning in class that week, month, quarter, whatever. It's hard to get info. out of kids.

Our class only has Edline to keep up with grades and school calendar events...
If I could do a website for our group/rotation (they have 4 teachers in 5th grade) I'd like to see more on when parties are, what help is needed for them, what things they are working on this week (edline is supposed to be updated with that, but many of the teachers have trouble keeping it up), are there any field trips upcoming, how much will they cost, do they need chaperones, etc.

My younger kids' teachers have been using snapfish (or shutterfly? I forget which) for the past couple of years. They send out permission slips asking if it's OK to post pictures of your kids on the site and you also supply your e-mail address (for the millionth time LOL). The teacher then adds the e-mail addresses to the site and from the site sends the parents an invite to join the group, giving access to view photos and other materials as well as post their own photos. It's not a public site so everything is secure. The site also allows the teacher to add calendar items, such as scheduling classroom volunteers or listing school or class events. It also has a neat feature where she can list what she needs (party supplies, specific parts of a craft done, supplies like tissues or snacks to share) and people can sign up to take whatever the "to-do" item is.

The above works really great, so any classroom website should have at least those features. My dream classroom web site would also include (in order of priority):

An exportable/sharable school calendar (iCal format) that can be added to Cozi, Outlook or other calendar apps that families might use. To not have to manually enter every day off, half day, spirit day, PTO meeting, etc. would be a dream.

Homework assignments, updated every day (probably not applicable to K but who knows)

Some kind of link to e-vite so that you could just import the class contact list and e-mail invites to birthday parties

An exportable e-mail list of parent contact info that you could load into your own e-mail account.

Hope that helps!

ETA: what would be cooler than anything would be to have one single-sign- on web portal into all things school-related. I have 4 kids and literally have to go to 15 different web sites to keep up to date on their information. Some teachers use shutterfly, some use new.schoonotes (but every teacher's page is different), some use teacherweb and some use their own websites. One school's web site contains basically nothing that's up to date so you have to go to another website to get daily announcements. That school also uses X2 to post grades. X2 has calendar and homework features, but the school and teachers don't use them. It's maddening! So if you're looking for a possible foray back into the working world, I bet there's a market to consult with school systems to get every school and every teacher on the same platform to prevent parents from going nuts!

Our class has two. One is a Shutterfly group. There is a calendar and volunteer list. Another is at http://teacherweb.com. Since you are a web programmer my thought is you could look at these and see what you think and incorporate (or set up links to these sites if that's easier?). What I like about Shutterfly is the security. No one can get to the site that isn't a member. You'll also want to address security.

At my son's school, most teachers use teacherweb, updating about once a month. Each teacher lists their daily schedule, favorite online resources, and supplies they need. The school district and each school have websites that are updated more often, including announcements, calendars, special events, rule handbook, and maps. The PTA has a facebook account run by the parents.