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Eastview High School, Minnesota ISD 196
Dr. Randall W. Peterson
Principal, Eastview High School
2,200 students
Minnesota ISD 196
Apple Valley, Minnesota
28,000 students

Minnesota ISD 196 Eastview Meets Complex Scheduling Needs
Minnesota Independent School District 196 wanted a student information system (SIS) capable of meeting the scheduling needs of its high schools. In 2004, Eastview was selected as a pilot school for Infinite Campus and found functionality capable of meeting its most complex scheduling requirements.

Overcoming Scheduling Obstacles
When Eastview High School opened its doors to students in 1997, scheduling student classes was managed using technology that had been in place for 25 years. The limitations of outdated technology forced strictures on scheduling and required large outlays of time and resources in an attempt to provide individualized learning plans (ILP) for students.
 
Dr. Randall W. Peterson, Eastview High School Principal, offers an example of his school’s scheduling challenges, “It was common for a scheduling run to process over a three day weekend. The outcome was a 12 percent student schedule completion rate.”

After becoming an Infinite Campus customer, Eastview was able to manage the most sophisticated scheduling requirements easily and on time.

Increasing Scheduling Efficiency
As an early adopter of Infinite Campus, Eastview was able to compare its effectiveness with other systems. Infinite Campus was chosen for many reasons, but one of the most powerful aspects of the system is the scheduling functionality. Infinite Campus got it right the first time.

“Eastview achieved a 96 percent student request rate the first year, creating an efficiency rate unequaled by other SIS vendors which attempted to run our schedule,” says Peterson. “For our scheduling team, this means reduced schedule clean-up expenditures and greater time efficiency.”

Eastview’s Vision: A Community of Learning
A 21st century education implies preparing a student to succeed in a diverse, global society immersed in a rapidly changing technological revolution. Rigid text-driven curricula focusing on compartmentalized skills have been replaced by a new paradigm.

Successful schools concentrate on educating the whole student through interdisciplinary, integrated project-based curricula.

“Eastview’s educational vision is to create a community of learning with an exceptional foundation of relationships,” says Peterson. “Many schools alter their educational foundation to conform to limiting conditions determined by a computer program. Our educational foundation is based on high standards of pedagogy and meaningful relationships. It was a challenge to schedule a progressive school like ours using 1980s technology.”

Providing for Complex Scheduling
To offer each student an opportunity to succeed in this new educational environment requires the recognition of individual student needs and strengths and the development of individualized learning plans (ILP) for each student.

With a student body of 2,200, Eastview needed a system to individualize their scheduling process. Infinite Campus had, and continues to have, the best scheduling module on the market to accomplish this.

To support giving all students an ILP, Eastview offers a wide variety of core and elective courses, team teaching options, class duration and subject integration. Beginning with a baseline of quarter-class configurations, team teaching in integrated classes might be:
• 2 x 2 - English and social studies for 10th graders,
• 3 x 3 - English, social studies and science for 9th graders, as well as,
• Integration of all four core subjects.

Describing Eastview’s commitment to success for every student, Peterson says, “To meet the needs of our students and develop academic programs within our learning schedule spectrum, we offer quarter, semester, shared district trimester, single period, and double period courses as well as phasing students and a variety of team teaching/platooning options.”

From their first year as a customer of Infinite Campus, Eastview has enjoyed the scheduling functionality necessary to bring reality to their educational vision.

“Infinite Campus continues to evolve and revolutionize learning opportunities both through user friendly features and programming algorithms,” says Peterson.

Impact on Staff and Administrators
Eastview not only has complicated scheduling needs at the beginning of each term, many unforeseen circumstances such as schedule change requests, walk-in enrollments, and intra-district transfers add to the demands of scheduling tasks. Meeting these demands is a collaborative effort by counselors, teachers and administrators. Each member of the scheduling team plays a different role and each finds using Infinite Campus a positive experience.

To illustrate the impact of Infinite Campus on Eastview staff and administration, Peterson relates the enthusiasm of counselors, registrars, teachers and other principals.

“Counselors love it for its ease of use, processing power and multiple screen views. Students at Eastview no longer have to wait for an appointment with a counselor or stand in line for a schedule change.”

“Registrars love it for the ease of intra-district transfers of data.”

“Teachers love it for user friendly attendance, test data and communicating mapped curriculum. Eastview has eliminated the need for SIS teacher in-service because of the logical user-friendly web-based nature of the product. We are able to provide a more appropriate response to intervention and formative assessment.”

“Infinite Campus streamlines the administrative process to allow principals to move from time consuming management to transformational leadership. Even though we have been on board with Infinite Campus for several, we continue to find more practical applications to increase efficiency.”

Journey to Extraordinary
With five years of successful Infinite Campus use under its belt, Eastview is in a position to share its experience with the educational community. During the pilot program, Eastview was attracted to Infinite Campus by a unique combination of visionary leadership, skilled programming, and creative research and development.

“The leadership at Infinite Campus understood that we were not interested in purchasing a product to complete a task,” says Peterson. “We were on a learning mission, a journey to change the lives of our students and learning community. We did not purchase a product, but created a limitless partnership.”

For Eastview, the partnership continues to grow and meet the needs of its educational community.

“In Infinite Campus we found a company that intimately understands the world of the educator, the educational process, and shares our passion for learning,” says Peterson. “They grasp the importance of scheduling from a resource allocation standpoint. Eastview High School is proud to be intimately engaged with and have the support of Infinite Campus on our educational ‘Journey to Extraordinary’.”