BRAINTREE -- The Catholic Schools Office of the Archdiocese of Boston launched its revamped website this month, which aims to highlight the value of Catholic education and serve as central point for parents to find and become engaged with their local Catholic school.

The redesigned website, csoboston.org, was unveiled on at a workshop for Catholic school principals, held at the Pastoral Center Aug. 8.

In his remarks at the beginning of the event, Superintendent of Catholic Schools Thomas Carroll noted that the website is part of a larger effort to update the websites of major archdiocesan offices.

"The aesthetic quality of the websites is incredible," Carroll told the principals in attendance.

Jaime Gaudet, director of School Improvement Planning, gave a presentation on the CSO's new website, which she said took four years to make.

"This website is really, truly intended to help market all of our schools and really showcase all the incredible things that you all do on a daily basis," Gaudet told the attendees.

The website provides compilations of statistics shared by the schools. Each school is represented by an overview, its mission statement, program highlights, and, for many, a testimonial. There are also links to school and parish websites.

"It's really intended to drive traffic to your (school) websites, to try to give enough preliminary information so that schools or parents can get interested and then click on your page," Gaudet said.

She said the information currently on the website was collected in the fall, and encouraged the attendees to notify the CSO if they want to change or add any information, in order to keep the website accurate and up-to-date.

"We really want it to best represent your school," she said.

The website has a "Find a School" feature that allows interested families to browse schools by zip code, gender, and grade level.

It also has a "Faces of Catholic Education" section, where schools can highlight administrators, faculty, students, and parents. Schools can work with Meghan Stellman, manager of school communications, to create biographies for people they want to feature in this section.

The site includes a school news feature, where schools can register events. Gaudet urged the principals to send news to Stellman for inclusion on the website.

"We really want this to be a robust and comprehensive feature of the site, so your participation in that is really critical," Gaudet told the attendees.

A career page, listing all current job openings in the archdiocese's Catholic schools, is also featured on the website.

"We're really thrilled that this day is finally here. Again, this has been a long journey to get to this point, and we're really excited to be able to share it with all of you," Gaudet said.