Wawasee Converting To New Student Data System
SYRACUSE — More emphasis is being placed by school corporations on data driven decisions. As a result, it is important to be able to access this data as easily and efficiently as possible.
During the April 21 meeting of the school board for Wawasee Community Schools, among the actions taken was the board granting approval to enter into an agreement with Skyward, a student management software system. A team of administrators, staff and teachers had recommended the system. It replaces Harmony, a system administrators say was simply not growing with the needs of the school corporation.
“Each school was a separate database in Harmony and required quite a bit of manipulation to access data,” said Dave Van Lue, director of technology for Wawasee Community Schools. “Since there is so much emphasis on data driven decisions with students and faculty, we need to get this information easily. Harmony was also in transition of moving to a web based version and it was not functioning as intended. We needed a more reliable system. As you recall last year, the system went down the very first day of school.”
Skyward was chosen because, among other reasons, it is more “robust,” Van Lue noted, and will allow family relationships to be set up where a parent can login one time and see all of their student’s information. He said the system allows for more avenues of communication with parents and students. “It (Skyward) is built on a very powerful database that is much more reliable than our previous system,” he added, and integrates more easily with the school corporation’s transportation, library, messaging and other systems.
Growing pains are common when data is converted from one system to another and Wawasee has not been exempted. Online registration was delayed by a day as mass emails sent to parents were blocked or not sent at all. “We are spending a lot of time cleaning up data and setting up new systems for billing and online payments,” he said, including making all new forms for online registration. “Getting login IDs and passwords to parents to begin online registration has been an adventure.”
Patience will be needed until Skyward is fully integrated. Van Lue stressed, though, some schools already using Skyward were visited and “every school we visited said that parents and staff alike just loved it.” Once the major hurdles are cleared, he added, he believes Wawasee patrons will be pleased with the system.
According to Wawasee’s website, more than 50 school districts in Indiana are now using Skyward.