Poudre School District Shifts to Web Based SIS -- THE Journal

Poudre School District Shifts to Web Based SIS

By Dian Schaffhauser
11/14/12

The Poudre School District will be moving online with its student information system and grade book application for the 2013-2014 school year. The Colorado district, which has 27,000 students in 52 campuses, will be shifting to Synergy SIS by Edupoint Educational Systems after using ExLogica's Silk for the past 11 years. (ExLogica was acquired by GlobalScholar in 2009 and its technology integrated into Pinnacle Suite.) The district had been evaluating potential contenders in a cross-functional selection process that began in November 2011.

Synergy SIS provides:

Web-based accessibility;
An integrated grade book and reporting on attendance, grades, assignments, and other information within TeacherVUE;
Flexibility in how a student record is structured, to accommodate multiple household addresses, health history and screening, special programs tracking, discipline entry and reporting, and ad hoc reporting;
A master schedule builder to create multiple schedules and test out different scheduling scenarios based on district or school criteria;
Student access to grades and upcoming assignments through StudentVUE; and
Parent access to similar information along with customizable email alerts through ParentVUE.

"Our users had tough questions, but Edupoint answered all of them," said Don Begin, district director of IT. "In the end, the district chose the Synergy system for its flexibility--we believe our requirements will grow and change in the future, and the architecture of the Synergy system fully supports rapid application development. Its integration of the SIS module with the electronic Gradebook, which are two separate solutions in our current system, will improve classroom performance and enhance communications with students and parents."

This is the second implementation the company will have in Colorado. Recently, Arlington Public Schools in Virginia and Federal Way Public Schools in Washington also announced the adoption of Synergy.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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