District software

I interviewed the technology director for my district (SAU 39) and also the network administrator at the middle school where I work. I was able to gain a good understanding of the software and subscriptions we use in our district to collect data, and run our school web sites and content management systems.

Our student information system is called MMS. This database houses all of our student information such as ID, parent information, grades, scheduling, all of the students personal information, and discipline information. This application is managed by the high school operations manager for the district. Each of our schools uses their own version of MMS which is managed by that schools information specialist. We have used MMS for several years and have generally been very happy with the application. 

Our district has plenty of latitude when calculating grades. Unlike many schools who use Power School and post their grades online, we do not have a parent portal for parents to view grades. At the middle school where I work our teachers use MMS, Gradekeeper, Itslearning (our content management system) and even Excel to house and calculate their grades. The elementary school uses MMS and the high school uses MMS and Itslearning. The cost for MMS is $9,000 annually for the district. Gradekeeper is free. Itslearning costs $12,000 annually and the grade book is one feature within the application. At some point in the future, we will all be using Itslearning which will allow us to open a parent portal allowing parents to view their children’s grades. 

All of the districts report cards, K-12 are printed from MMS. For those teachers who are not using MMS as their standard grade book, they must enter the final numeric grade which is then calculated to a letter grade for report cards. 

Our content management system is called Itslearning. We used Angel for many years and switched to Itslearning two years ago, when blackboard bought out Angel. Itslearning is a content management system that creates courses for all teachers. Teachers can post content, post homework, create lessons, test, quizzes, and set calendar date events. Students can upload files to their private portfolios for work at home. Itslearning is a blended learning environment where students can access any and all information their teacher chooses to post via the web. There is a parent portal features that will be enabled in the future allowing parent’s access to their children’s courses, as well as grades, once all the teachers start using Gradebook within Itslearning. This application is used K-12 in our district and is managed by the technology director. The annual cost is $12,000. Itslearning has been well received in our district. Teachers, students, and parents feel the application is user friendly. 

Our district uses Schoolwires for our web site development and maintenance. This external company hosts our web sites in a secure site. Each of our schools: elementary, middle and high school custom build their own pages. The web sites are managed by each schools information specialist. The cost for Schoolwires is approximately $7,000 annually.

Trumba is the application we use to maintain our school calendar. Trumba costs $4,000 annually and is managed by the districts Business Administrator. ScheduleIt costs $150 annually and allows us to schedule internal resources such as conference rooms, labs, and computer carts. ScheduleIt is used in the middle and high schools and is managed by each schools network administrator. School Dude is used to schedule athletic fields and maintenance throughout the district. This application is managed by the Facilities Manager at a cost of $1,500 annually.  Trumba and School Dude has been used successfully in our district for many years. ScheduleIt has been used at the high school for three years, but was just implemented in the middle school this year. The only issue with ScheduleIt is that the program is very simple program (not robust with many features) and doesn't allow for look back on finding a resource. Prior to using ScheduleIt we maintained a manual list for scheduling resources, so this application has been a big improvement. 

Keeping our schools running