Lockport, Illinois
3,700 Students

When Lockport Township High School D205’s former student information system (SIS) vendor discontinued its product, the district saw an opportunity to upgrade to a new system. Their previous SIS was not Web-based and had multiple components, so information was not consistent or in real time. When they heard about Infinite Campus, a fully-integrated, Web-based solution, they were intrigued by its capabilities and strong presence in the area.

Challenges
Lockport faced many challenges with their previous system’s multiple components. According to Patrick Olmsted, assistant principal of Lockport, “Our previous vendor had bought several other companies and used their products to ‘piece together’ an SIS. There was no integration, so we had to perform data backups on every system in the district. We also had to manually install software updates. These maintenance tasks were very time consuming.”

Since Lockport’s SIS was not fully integrated, information was not in real time. Olmsted said, “Our previous grade book and parent portal were separate components. Grade updates would be a day late which was frustrating for teachers, parents and students.”

Lockport knew they needed a Web-based SIS with true integration. Olmsted heard about Infinite Campus through other school districts who conveyed the many advantaged of the system.

Solution
After reviewing three SIS vendor demos, Lockport chose Infinite Campus as their new, ‘upgraded’ SIS. They have seen many benefits since its implementation in 2010.

In a community that is tornado prone, Lockport chose to store their data at the Infinite Campus corporate headquarters in Minnesota. Campus Hosting backs up district data nightly at its data center. This practice has helped districts recover and restore data records after a hardware malfunction or disruption of data due to a disaster.

This decision was amplified after Infinite Campus schools in Joplin, Mo. and Ringgold, Ga. were destroyed by tornadoes. “As a district, we were saddened to see the destruction of these schools, but we were glad to hear that Infinite Campus was able to get them back online in no time,” stated Olmsted.

With Infinite Campus, both the Campus Gradebook and the Campus Portal are fully integrated into the core SIS. Teachers can enter grades in the Campus Gradebook, and parents and students can access them in real time via the Campus Portal.

In addition, Lockport chose to implement Tableau, an optional product that combines data from Infinite Campus such as grades, attendance, test scores and more, with other common data sources from Excel®, Access®, SQL Server®, Oracle® such as MySQL. When data is combined, it forms into powerful, unified, Web-based data visualizations. Tableau allows Lockport to “picture” a vast assortment of student data and understand it as a unified whole.

“With Tableau, we can build and publish reports, so other authorized users have direct access to them,” said Olmsted. “It’s very fast and convenient for everyone involved.”

Results
Lockport has seen many positive results with the integration of Infinite Campus. For example, Olmsted can download a list of all the students who qualify for a free or reduced lunch which is imported directly into their SIS. “Previously, we had to manually enter each student who qualified for free or reduced lunch into our system,” explained Olmsted. “Now, this process only takes us five minutes! We’ve saved hours of time.”

This student data is seamlessly integrated with Campus Food Service, an optional product that streamlines Lockport’s cafeteria operations. Parents also have access to lunch balances and a list of what their student chose to eat via the Campus Portal.

Computer Information Concepts, Inc. (CIC) is the Infinite Campus Channel Partner serving customers in several states, including Illinois. CIC works with Lockport to provide the best localized service and support possible.

“CIC handles any issues we have very quickly,” said Olmsted. “We also joined a local user group where we connect with other districts to exchange ideas share unique product uses. We feel our voices are really being heard.”

Overall, Lockport’s success with Infinite Campus is a story to share with others. According to Olmsted, “As a product and a company, Infinite Campus is a complete package.”