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Franklin-McKinley School District
Delma Juarez
Director of Information Technology
San Jose, California
9,960 students

Franklin-McKinley Streamlines CSIS Reporting and Achieves ROI
Franklin-McKinley, in San Jose, California, serves nearly 10,000 students. In 2006, after 21 years with SASI, it realized this system could no longer provide adequate service and support to meet the needs of the district and the increasing demands from the California Department of Education. Franklin-McKinley chose Infinite Campus as its data management system and within two years realized success with state reporting, a significant return on investment and more.

Wanting a Strong Sense of Loyalty
For Franklin-McKinley, a trusted partnership with its data management vendor was important. Personalized service, ongoing support, and open communications to the district were expectations that Franklin-McKinley valued.

“I strongly believe in developing close relationships with vendors; where we have a partnership with loyalty to each other,” said Delma Juarez, Franklin-McKinley Director of Information Technology. “With Infinite Campus, we have that partnership relationship. We know they are committed to the K12 market and providing customer service is a top priority.”

Defining the Needs
Like all districts, Franklin-McKinley needed to be efficient with time and money. It wanted a company that would not only serve district needs today, but provide a technology system that would bring them into the future.

Franklin-McKinley reviewed their “must have” criteria for a new student data management system.

They wanted:

• a web-based system with real time information, anywhere, any time
• a truly integrated system for administrators, support staff, teachers, parents and students
• to eliminate several third party programs that incurred additional costs to the district
• one system to house the student’s data
• one-time data entry
• to eliminate multiple servers and have one database that was always up-to-date

The selection process for a new vendor took a year and a half, narrowed to three choices. After several demonstrations for a cross section of district users, Franklin-McKinley chose Infinite Campus.

“Infinite Campus had everything we were looking for,” said Juarez. “After a thorough evaluation, it was our number one choice by far. Besides the high quality of the system, the passion and commitment of the company to develop the best product for districts set Infinite Campus apart from the others.”

Success with State Reporting
The ability to manage state reporting requirements was extremely important to Franklin-McKinley. The old system had multiple data entry points across the district with no clearly defined processes. And as more state reporting data points were required, the product did not evolve to easily accommodate the changes.

“Campus created a thoughtful method for entering state required data,” said Juarez. “We do not have to enter it here, there and everywhere. It is entered in the state reporting area only – one time. It provides accurate, current data that is easy to use. Fall and spring submissions can be done in a snap!”

California customers benefit from Infinite Campus receiving the California Department of Education (DoE) California School Information Services (CSIS)-capable designation. This acknowledges that the Infinite Campus District Edition can manage and exchange student and staff information for the California DoE through CSIS.

Franklin McKinley successfully submitted both fall and spring 2008 California CSIS extracts with Infinite Campus.

Return on Their Investment
Since becoming an Infinite Campus customer, Franklin-McKinley has realized a significant cost savings.

“I’m a firm believer that you get what you pay for,” said Juarez. “Infinite Campus is worth every dime.”

Franklin-McKinley realized cost savings in many ways, including the ability to drop two small programs used to enhance SASI, since it was available within Infinite Campus and by eliminating consulting fees used to help them previously with state reporting.

Also, because there is only one server to upgrade, not 16, the district saved a lot of staff time on upgrades and routine maintenance. Calendar rollovers, once taking days, now are completed in minutes.

User Satisfaction
The positive partnership, personalized service and support, and a modern student data management system are now a reality for Franklin-McKinley.

“Our users love the browser interface and the anywhere, anytime access,”
said Juarez.

When asked what she would say to potential Infinite Campus customers, Juarez said, “Go for it. Infinite Campus has it all. It’s the best product on the market.”