The Data and Information Division continues to focus on improving student achievement through its D3M Strategic Journey. It is our desire to provide teachers and administrators with effective tools to support and accelerate our children’s learning. To that end, we are embarking on upgrading our existing student information system to a web-based, centralized database system. The new system, PowerSchool, was developed by Pearson. It will provide more comprehensive, real-time information to better monitor, track, and assist our children. This system will also replace our grading software (IntegradePro), attendance software (ClassXP), and parent web access (ParentConnect).

We are all excited to have this opportunity to move forward with the upgrade of our Student Information System.  The additional features will enable stakeholder engagement and data driven decision making through efficient, ubiquitous access to data.

• Enhancing how we track our children

With Pearson’s PowerSchool web-based system, student schedules, grades, disciplinary records, school course offerings, and attendance data will be readily available for teachers and administrators. Registration, student demographics, transcripts, immunizations, special academic programs, and test/assessment results are all critical data points that can also be managed with the system.

• Data Quality, Integrity, and Timeliness

With Pearson’s PowerSchool we will be able to eliminate 100+ databases that are currently being used to track and report on our students. The upgrade will eliminate the need for trying to synch and match all student data across these databases. District-wide reports will require less time to produce. It will now be possible to conduct data validation at the point of entry, a much needed feature missing from our old system. PowerSchool will also allow various district software systems to connect and automatically share real-time information, eventually eliminating the need to enter duplicate data in multiple applications.

• Connecting with the Parents

With Pearson’s PowerSchool a new communication website will be available to students and parents providing greater access to grades, homework assignments, and attendance information.

PowerSchool is expected to be deployed by September, 2008 for the elementary schools and September, 2009 for secondary and alternative schools. We expect the new features in PowerSchool to alter how we effectively manage student data. Training sessions will begin this Spring for central support personnel.

More information will be forthcoming, but if you have any questions or comments about the SISup! project, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

David Feliciano, Chief Data and Information Officer