Students may not always tell their parents everything when it comes to how much homework they have or when their assignments are due, but parents may soon be able to breathe easy when it comes to staying “”in the know.””##M:[more]##
The district is planning to roll out a new student information system — which has the capabilities to, in the future, allow parents to log in via the Internet to check on their students’ progress — by the spring.
The new database is called Infinite Campus, and last week, the board approved its purchase for $224,”269.75. The entire system is web-based so teachers, parents, and students can access information from anywhere at any time. It also serves as a district-wide data warehouse, allowing student data to be entered once and leveraged across the entire district, according to the company’s Web site.
What’s innovative about it is that one feature — known as Campus Grade Book — allows a teacher to input a students’ grades into the system using the Internet. Those grades are immediately available to students, their guardians, counselors, and school administrators. Teachers can also share comments, assignments and progress reports through the Web, and students can view their current academic standing.
The new system also allows teachers to set up their classroom plans, including assignments, grading curves, due dates, objectives and references. Standardized test data can also be assigned to courses to determine if those courses are fulfilling the educational requirements of those tests.
According to district technology director Rick Cave, the school district actually purchased the new database because its current SASI system no longer meets the district’s needs.
The new online system provides a lot more access and a lot more functionality, he said. The current system works fine for the basics, like scheduling, but the school district was looking to expand, he said.
The new database will become “”the center of everything we do regarding data,”” as it can also allow school officials to analyze student test scores and assess how well their programs are doing. “”That’s really what kind of drove us toward getting a new program,”” he said.
The goal for its first year of implementation is to mimic what the school district already has done with its other data system, with regard to creating schedules and the like. Then, it will slowly start introducing the other features and use the system as “”a portal into the school for students, parents and teachers,”” he said.
Because there are so many features with the new system, some features will be introduced sooner than others, so committees will be formed to look at the features they want to implement, set time frames for introducing them, and talk about the various functionalities of each one. Some teachers and officials might want to use some features, but not others, so a plan will be put together, Cave said.
For now, it will take about three to four months to process the data conversion from its current system to the new one and reproduce the same information the district currently does with SASI. The board plans to have that part up and running in the spring.
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