So about those student information systems...

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Not much help, just agreement with the problem: We piloted software called Powerschool, it worked decent, we got in cheaply as Beta testers, and off we were, with a nifty app that did grades, student reports, class reports, district level reports, and would do attendance as well. After about two years Apple bought them out, and we suddenly had some issues with our PC machines, and the price was going up. We had to hire a person exclusively to handle the system, so add 1 to our IT staff of four. Big percentage jump there. Now we get updates every few months that usually break on a PC, attendance doesn't work as easily as they have changed through several iterations of toggle through absent/tardy/present versus type an A/T/nothing vs highlight the date on a matrix of kids, choose a value from a pull-down menu at the bottom left, and hit save at bottom right for each kid. It has gotten WORSE every time, but they won't respond to our desires. Theoretically, we can track your childs attendance at the office live, but teachers have returned to the paper based roll since the electric one takes longer, and they put the data in the machine at the end of the day, so that feature has become useless. And the tale goes on. Fortunatley, the grading works well, it is easily gathered at the office and District levels, and easily accessed in read-only web form by parents and kids with passwords.
But why are we paying MORE fo r aprogram we like LESS?
Come on OSS, help us out!; Posted by: ajole Posted on: 05/22/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use