PowerSchool is the leading web-based student information system on the market today. It continues to win the CODIE award for best student management system. Approximately 5000 schools currently use PowerSchool You can check out PowerSchool’s website at http://www.apple.com/education/powerschool/.

Our school district recognizes the importance of empowering all of the constituencies in the education community (teachers, administrators, parents) who can help students achieve their full potential. PowerSchool delivers tools that make record keeping simple for teachers, facilitate data-driven decisions by school administrators, and provide parents with real-time access to their children’s performance and whereabouts.

Our previous system was operated by one individual. Although the system was kept up to date as far as it’s data, it basically was the same student management system the district used 25 years ago. It was a closed, text based, terminal system. Special software was needed to access student information and generating reports, report cards, progress reports was a long drawn out process and these reports could only be generated by ONE person. Printing out mailing labels for schools had to be done by ONE person who mailed the labels back to the schools. PowerSchool uses an architecture where all files are stored in a centralized database with access available to all users with the appropriate security clearance. As you know, browser-based networks represent the future of network technology. Because PowerSchool is a browser-based system, the server only needs to be installed at one location to provide access to the entire district. This represents a substantial cost savings to the district because hardware will not have to be replicated at each location. The end user, whether it be a student, parent, teacher or administrator, uses a standard Internet browser such as Netscape, Firefox, Safari or MS Internet Explorer to access the data.