Presentation Title: “How the West Virginia Department of Education rebuilt wvde.us”

How the West Virginia Department of Education rebuilt wvde.us
Summary

This presentation discusses why the West Virginia Department of Education chose to replatform their flagship website on the Drupal CMS in 2025. We'll discuss the project lifecycle and key challenges related to procurement, culture, and technology.

Description

This presentation discusses why we chose to replatform on the Drupal CMS, how we manage deployments with a small team, how our component library works, and how performance is addressed at every level of the stack (CDNs, caching strategies, testing, accessibility audits, etc).

We also include unique non-technical insights related to;

- Our unique procurement strategy (faking agile methodologies given state government purchasing restrictions).
- Cultural changes required to become a digital-first publishing agency. How do we avoid the "PDF problem" culture found in large institutions?
- Challenges related to technical talent in government agencies.

Approval Status:
Approved
Date Submitted:
August 14, 2025
Category:
Government and Non-Profit Organizations Technology and Innovation
Audience:
  • Information Technology Staff
  • Supervisors, Managers, Directors
  • Purchasing or Business Office Staff
  • Government
Topics/Keywords:
  • Digital Publishing
  • Web development
  • Project Management
  • Digital Strategy

Presenter Information


Presenter(s):
Aaron Silber
Web Developer
West Virginia Department of Education
About the Presenter(s):

I'm a full-stack web developer who has spent the last 12 of the past 15 years in consulting, building applications for a variety of industry clients, with deep knowledge in areas of enterprise content management systems. In the past three years, I've lead digital modernization efforts and the replatforming of the wvde.us website at the West Virginia Department of Education.

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