Student Information Systems (SIS)

I chose SIS, with gritted teeth, because it's the only one of the three options that I use with regularity at The Potter's House. We have done some discussion and experimentation with data warehousing and learning management systems, but I wrestle with our SIS every day of the school year, and often lose. I wanted to learn more and hopefully ease my latent frustration. The research helped, as I learned more about our system and its competition.

My teeth were gritted because last summer we upgraded to a VERY different version of our SIS, InformationNOW from Software Technology, Inc. (STI). We've used STI products since before I joined the staff seven years ago, but 2010-2011 was THE upgrade. We went to a fully web-based, fully interactive system that includes parent and student portals. The basic programs are fine, but all of the bells and whistles we were promised with this upgrade were far more trouble than they were worth. In addition, at the end of first quarter we LOST all of the grades that had been inputted, right before report cards (of course) and had to do some MAJOR clean-up after STI restored the day-old backup. In short, our SIS did NOT make my life easier, though things did go more smoothly as the year progressed.

As I looked into the different SIS available to me, my favorite site quickly became Capterra.com, which is a software warehouse with over 300 SIS options. I love it because there's a filter with a range of different options to check, from how many students you're serving to whether you want to integrate donors to where you're located geographically. As I played with it, I was able to whittle the huge list down to just a few choices that would meet our school's needs. That was a very cool option!

Just to be spiteful, I decided to compare and contrast Information NOW with Powerschool, a Pearson product. It's spiteful because I was on the committee that researched and voted on last year's upgrade, and I voted for Powerschool over our current program. I was out voted, mostly because the transition would be easier with an upgrade rather than a complete change. Too bad the transition people weren't the ones who had to re-input their grades . . . Clearly I'm still a little bitter. To view my hopefully-honest comparison, read my next post.