Student Information System

Tennessee District Adopts Ed-Fi Student Data Tracking System

• By Sri Ravipati
• 09/12/16

The largest public school district in Tennessee has selected a new student database for its more than 47,000 students. Shelby County Schools (SCS) will begin using Ed-Fi, a free national open-source system that pulls from state, district and other databases to supply information about any student.  

Prior to the new system, SCS teachers would have to submit a request to their school’s front office whenever they needed students' information. SCS leaders said Ed-Fi has the potential to save teachers hours of work every week.

With Ed-Fi, teachers can access the following data:

• Attendance and disciplinary records;
• State and local assessment data;
• Grades, test scores and credits;
• Special designations, such as language and special needs information; and
• College and career readiness data.

“Our teachers have never had access to this kind of data before (all in one place),” Jessica Lotz, the district’s director of research and performance management, told Chalkbeat. “We have this firehose of data in the ed world, but this system makes it more useable and focused.”

Training began the first week of Sept. and involved 159 teachers and administrators. These “Ed-Fi experts” will go on to host training sessions in each school before Sept. 30.

Further information about Ed-Fi is available on the SCS site.