Features

Back-office business: How Schools GET IT DONE.

6/1/2011 By:

Students Overcome Enormous Obstacles to Become Successful Readers

Challenge: A 12-year-old girl with a physical disability went from a “wild child” in her Florida classroom to a studious, confident learner. A fifth grader with autism in Louisiana is now on the honor roll. In Houston, an eighth-grade girl with bipolar disorder who was unable to express her thoughts earned a high score on last year’s state reading exam and is writing a book about growing up with bipolar disorder.
Solution: These three children, along with six others, are Scholastic’s 2011 READ 180 All-Star Award winners. They all went from being struggling students to being confident readers.

Rhode Island Schools Adopt SIS

Challenge: Four districts, comprising nearly 45 schools and 18,000 students, were looking for a student-information system that would let them house several applications in one package.
Solution: The districts jointed 70 other schools in their state by going with Follett Software Company’s Web-based platform, Aspen SIS. The SIS lets the schools manage student and staff records, demographics, scheduling, attendance, discipline, grade book, special education, and much more.

Choosing the Right Network-Management Tool

Challenge: Monroe (Louisiana) City School District had to figure out a way to keep track of its network infrastructure’s health and performance.
Solution: The district chose SolarWinds to monitor network health and diagnose network problems before they affect end users.

Ohio Districts Sign WAN Deals

Challenge: A pair of Ohio districts wanted to increase their network application offerings without worrying about bandwidth.
Solution: The districts signed a 10-year agreement with UPN to lease data services over a fiber-optic wide area network, consolidate their data centers, and offer voice and digital video for the long term.

Data Reporting Is Automated

Challenge: New York districts needed help with their state data reporting.
Solution: CertifySIRS, from Certica Solutions, is a hosted data-certification service that lets schools validate and monitor data directly from their student-information and special-education systems.

Online PD Comes to a New York District

Challenge: The White Plains (New York) City School District wanted to provide just-in-time professional development but had a limited budget.
Solution: The district purchased Sublime Learning’s eTeachables for Visual Learning, an online PD package with more than 400 video tutorials on integrating technology into instruction.