We were pleased with our SIS vendor but Pearson bought them and killed the system…we were blindsided,” said Frank Walters, Augusta’s SIS Manager. The district suddenly faced two challenges.."
CHALLENGE 1: THE
ROAD LESS TRAVELED.
“Pearson obviously wanted everyone
to buy PowerSchool,” Walters
said. “And everyone in Virginia recognized
Pearson and PowerSchool.
People asked, ‘Why wouldn’t you
just go with the industry standard?’
We were often criticized for taking
a different path and not blindly
following other Virginia divisions.
But I knew what we needed...and it
wasn’t PowerSchool.”
CHALLENGE 2: ACCESS
TO DATA.
Walters made sure any potential
vendor was open to his expectations
regarding Augusta’s database.
“We needed the ability to access,
manipulate, and update the database.
Some vendors wouldn’t give
us access and couldn’t understand
why that was important. Campus
offered access.”
BELLS AND WHISTLES.
Walters said seven vendors were
considered and Campus stood out
functionally and financially. “No system
had more bells and whistles. I
didn’t see a better overall SIS than
Campus. I told our finance officer
we’d save money with Campus and
data would be more accurate once
we went from disparate systems to
everything under one umbrella.”
IF THE SIS YOU BUY TODAY…
“Charlie Kratsch (Infinite Campus Founder and CEO) sold
me on his vision for how technology can transform education…
that districts can’t stay stuck in their old ways
and need to adapt so they can use data to make better
decisions,” Walters said. “I remember him saying ‘If
the SIS you buy today looks the same in five years, you
bought the wrong SIS!’
I mention that when people ask, ‘Why has Campus
changed this or that?’ Things change quickly in education
so why shouldn’t we have something that is dynamic
and not static for years?”
MORE EFFICIENT PROCEDURES.
Augusta has consistently added Campus Premium Products
to the core SIS for an integrated, single solution. A
secondary benefit of integration has been increased
communication in the division.
“Adding Campus Food Service, Messenger, Online Payments
and Online Registration brought stakeholders
together,” Walters said. “People who had never talked before came to the same table. Together, we looked
at business practices that had been in place forever
and implemented more efficient procedures.
A BIT OF GLUE.
We have become a bit of glue
amongst stakeholders across
many departments. We bring
people together to talk
and then improve
business practices
that make their lives
less stressful and
create better experiences
for students
and parents.”
IT’S ALL THERE.
“When counselors look at transcripts
and when parents and students look
in the portal…it’s the same reaction:
it’s all there and it’s accurate. I have
seen the number of help tickets and
complaints about inconsistent data
dramatically decline.”
THE BEST CAMPUS
PRODUCT.
“Online Registration (OLR) is the
best Campus product we have implemented,”
Walters said. “Before,
schools were collecting data on
phone calls, Google Docs, forms…
resulting in piles of papers. Then, six
people in six different departments
had to enter it. Now, parents enter
data online and it goes to all the
right places. Staff no longer have to
say, ‘I don’t know how that information
got there’ because the parent
put it there.
The integration is seamless and parents
control the information. Parents
love that they are doing the data entry
instead of writing it on paper and
hoping a staff member can read it
and get it entered within a couple
weeks. Secretaries don’t have to enter
the data, they just review it and
click accept or reject. They see that
OLR works as promised and wasn’t
too good to be true.”
I SEE THE PRIDE.
“I go to schools during registration
events and I’ve seen the difference
OLR has made. I see the pride when
parents can choose the ‘already registered
online’ line, breeze through
what they have to do, and are out in
minutes. The other parents stand in a
line that’s 10 deep and wait to sit at a
computer. My goal is to help schools
organize and improve their registration
processes even more with OLR.”
SUPERINTENDENT:
“ONE APPLICATION.”
According to Eric W. Bond, Ed. D.,
Augusta’s Division Superintendent,
having a single solution has been
beneficial. “In the past, in addition
to an SIS, we had to purchase, populate, and maintain numerous individual
applications such as food
service, messenger, health records,
registration, and grade book,” Bond
said. “With Campus, the disparate
applications have been incorporated
into one application providing
staff a single point of access…eliminating
the need for data choreography
between numerous systems
and multiple login accounts.”
A GAME CHANGER.
“I know you have a ton of other users
but we feel like close friends to
you and that is highly unusual…it’s
a neat concept,” Walters said. “I tell
everybody that the Infinite Campus
staff is always friendly and professional.
I can’t say that about all our
vendors.
Most importantly, you’re timely in resolving issues…that’s critical. SIS departments are always under timelines for state reporting, federal reporting, and whatever. If we need it right away, Campus delivers it right away. We have more than a dozen vendors and Campus is the most responsive. Timeliness in response… it’s a game changer.”
VALUE OF SUPPORT.
“I’ve been doing this for 15 years
and previously had my own business
selling computers and network
systems to businesses,” Walters said.
“I know the value of support.
Campus received a couple similar
calls from our staff so they reached
out to me. We looked into it and
learned we gave the wrong directive
in training. But that was great…Campus
flagged it and called. You just
don’t see that in the support world.”
MORE THAN AN SIS.
“Infinite Campus is much more than an SIS,” Walters said.
“It’s a messaging system, it’s a food service system…you
can do personnel and finance tasks…and more. We customize
Campus for what we need now and know it will
serve us in the future. Most importantly, Campus is flexible
because we can’t tell 18 schools they have to work the
same way, we can’t do that. No TWO schools even work
the same way!”
GET A QUOTE.
“Other divisions say ‘We don’t have the staff to look at a
different system or we don’t have the money.’ My reply:
You might want to get a quote from Campus because you
may be surprised! You can get by with less staff because
you don’t need to make disparate systems talk to each
other. And look at the cost of all your systems…rolling
them all under one company may save you a lot of money.”
WHY WOULDN’T YOU USE CAMPUS?
“If you have a decent product and decent support then
you’re ahead of everybody,” Walters said. “If you want a
great product and great support, Campus is the obvious
choice.”
TRANSFORM YOUR DIVISION.
“Our schools have realized it’s about more than just collecting
data and sending it to the state or to the feds; it’s
about the experience parents and students have in the
school system.
If you’re willing to review your business practices, data
collection practices, and reporting processes and then use
the SIS to improve each of those, Campus can transform
your division. Campus has exceeded my expectations.”
AWARD-WINNING SUPPORT.
The Campus Support team won two awards
at the HDI 2019 Conference in Orlando:
• Team Excellence Award
• Best Service & Support Culture Award
“We didn’t win because we do everything perfectly,”
said Gina Montague, Manager, Support
Services. “We won because we have a passion
for excellence and striving to make things better.”
HDI is the technical support industry’s certification body and annually honors organizations for leadership
and innovation; past winners include Marriott, American Express, and PepsiCo.
Full 2019 Travel Issue available here.