Success Story

What led Durant to use Campus Learning Suite as its LMS?

When Campus Learning Suite became an option around 2017, I told my team that if it met our needs, we were going to make the change. It would cost less and we wouldn’t have to deal with integrations.

We want teachers to have the easiest experience when it comes to their student information system and learning management system. The more we can take away from what they have to do, the more time they have to spend with their students, which is where we want them to be.

How did the transition to Campus Learning Suite go?

It was not a hard transition from one LMS to the other. We gave our teachers an entire year with both LMSs, allowing them time to move the curriculum they needed. Now, they have the ability to roll that content forward every year and copy curriculum from fellow teachers. We love your LMS; it works pretty seamlessly.

What makes Durant unique when it comes to their teachers?

When we hire teachers in Durant, whether they’re coming to us from another district or straight out of college, they just have to learn about Durant. They don’t have to start, or even finish, their year having ever written a lesson plan or creating an assignment.

Our teachers work very collaboratively. From day one, they already have every assignment for the entire year. We help new teachers roll assignments forward from their department. Of course, they can tweak them and change things to meet their class needs. But initially, they don’t have to do anything but learn to be a teacher. It’s a huge advantage for our teachers to be able to walk in the door and start teaching.

Which Campus Learning Suite tools do your teachers gravitate towards?

Teachers love the new Section Feed. It just leans toward what kids and parents are used to. Using it for messaging has made the biggest difference in our teacher communication with parents.

As far as day-to-day operations, we use it all every day. Teachers craft assignments, create quizzes, add assessments, and more. I can’t narrow it down because they really use everything.

How is Infinite Campus helping Durant Public Schools improve educational outcomes?

For me, educational outcomes can’t be measured in a test. The very best way to teach students is person-to-person, giving teachers the time to sit with a student and say, “let’s work through this.”

Because of the way we use the LMS, our teachers have created pre-assessments, post-assessments, and middle-of-the-road assessments. They build out every assignment for the year, so the description is there with links, pictures, videos… it’s all right there.

By using those assessment tools, 98% of the class is on task, which makes the teacher available to spend one-on-one time with a student or small groups. Being able to create different assignments for different groups on the same day is huge. It allows teachers to offer students what they need without taking away from others. That, to me, is more outcome than any test will ever show.

What feedback have you heard from parents and teachers since making Campus Learning Suite your primary LMS?

Parents like being able to set up their own preferences for how they’re notified about student information and performance. They love being able to see those notifications without logging in, and can log in for more details if needed. Our parents also love that they’re only going to one place to do everything they need to do. It’s one login, one spot, and they don’t have to learn a bunch of different systems.

Our teachers appreciate that parents immediately see feedback and don’t have to wait until conferences to know what’s happening. We’ve also eliminated a whole lot of paperwork and office work by using these tools. We’re no longer sending paper letters or report cards, which has been huge. It gives back time.

When speaking about Campus Learning Suite with other districts, what features or workflows do you highlight?

In my opinion, anytime you’re adding in a third-party product, you’re adding in failure. By using Campus Learning Suite alone, we’ve eliminated that point of failure. It’s all within our system, and we love that. And frankly, I love the cost savings. I’m already paying for that product so why pay for another? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Having it all in one place is huge for teachers. They’ve got communication, a Facebook-like feed, assessments, and the ability to fully describe their day-to-day assignments, including links, videos, and pictures. Everything a teacher needs is in one system, with one login.

Our teachers have learned one product, and it does everything they need. It’s been a game changer for our teachers.

Any message to districts using Infinite Campus SIS but not Campus Learning Suite?

Campus Learning Suite does everything that every other learning management system does. Period.

I understand districts don’t want change for their teachers because it’s hard. Rolling out implementations is hard. But from a learning management standpoint, not having to deal with integrations is huge. I don’t think you realize how much time it will give you back until you’ve done it. Having everything in one place, with a single login, means there’s less for teachers to learn, remember, and manage.

The number one goal for me in my position is to give teachers and administrators as much time back as I can. If I can do that by providing a tool that’s easy to learn and easy to use, then I’ve done the very best thing I can do for my people.

Does Durant have any other favorite Infinite Campus tools?

Outside of our LMS, the tool we use most is Campus Messenger with Voice.  Previously, we used third-party messaging tools, and while they worked fine, we still had to do some kind of integration to make everything work together. It wasn’t worth it.

Using Messenger, we send a ton of texts and emails. As a district, we love that we can simply send messages to grade levels, campuses, or very specific groups of student/parent contacts across campuses or the entire district using ad hoc reports. Classroom teachers can message individual contacts, a whole class period of contacts, or contacts across each of their sections, all in one system. The flexibility and ease of use can’t be beat.

The Parent Portal has also made a huge difference for us. It connects parents to the gradebook, online enrollment, and fee payments all in one place. When we implemented Campus Payments and the School Store, we increased our payment of fees by almost double because parents could do it online!