Santa Clarita, California
23,000 Students
William
S. Hart, in Santa Clarita, California, serves 23,000 students. For
William S. Hart, a trusted partnership with its data management vendor
was important. Real time updating, parent portal communication and ease
of state reporting were expectations that William S. Hart valued.
“Infinite
Campus has been exceptional in staying on top of all state changes and
requirements as well as pushing out revisions to districts in a timely
manner,” said Dr. Daniel McHorney, William S. Hart Director of
Technology. “Before implementing Infinite Campus it took several hours
to run state reporting and data entry was cumbersome and not user
friendly.”
Challenges
In
2010, after 16 years with SASI, William S. Hart realized the 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.
Previously,
it took William S. Hart several hours to run a California Longitudinal
Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) extract. Data entry was
cumbersome and not user friendly. Parent communication was also a big
issue for the district.
Solution
The
selection process for a new vendor was narrowed to five choices. A
committee was formed comprising district administrators, teachers,
computer specialists, attendance clerks and registrars. After several
demonstrations from the district users, William S. Hart chose Infinite
Campus.
“Registrars
report more free time and items that were once entered manually, such
as SAT results and transcript information, are now imported efficiently
at the district level,” said McHorney.
Results
Currently,
over 80% of William S. Hart students now have at least one
parent/guardian with a portal account. Campus helped customize programs
and scripts for the district.
This district is now able to identify student needs with a variety of information and analysis. They have eliminated paper waste with electronic signature attendance, and portal availability of schedules and grades.
The district began to implement a paper-free environment with report cards in Fall 2012. Parents were notified by phone and by portal that they could begin this service of which nearly all took advantage.
“During implementation, the Infinite Campus team held our hands every step of the way and were prompt in answering all of our questions and relieving our anxiety,” said Carol Goodman, William S. Hart Information Systems Analyst. “Over the past three years we have had many different training events. All the trainers have been knowledgeable, concise, patient and helpful.”
The majority of teachers also use the grade book program and electronic attendance signatures, saving time and expense. Administrators speak highly of the scheduling wizard and students and parents are more actively involved in grades and attendance. CALPADS extracts now take less than a minute.
“We have told other districts of our satisfaction with Campus,“ McHorney said. “It’s useful from a networking/file management perspective because all of the updates and management are handled by Campus instead of locally.” The district has found State reporting to be more efficient and easy. Campus districts in California have been successful in certifying their data in a timely manner.
The
positive partnership, personalized service, support and a modern
student data management system are now a reality for William S. Hart.
“Campus has been helpful with customized programming and scripts.
Implementation went smoothly with the help of their training model,“
McHorney said.
Goodman added, “Campus Community is invaluable. The best part of Campus
support has been our client executive and business analyst. They are
immediately responsive, sympathetic, smart and our greatest advocates.
They are completely on top of state requirement issues and the weekly
conference calls are informative and essential.”