Case Study

The Alvarado Independent School District (ISD) is a growing K-12 school district in northern Texas with a diverse population of 3,359 students. Located in Alvarado, Texas, in close proximity to the Dallas metro area, the Alvarado ISD consists of one high school, one junior high school, three elementary schools and an alternative campus school.

The challenge: finding a solution for updating and managing student information more efficiently and cost effectively

Until recently, the Alvarado ISD was using a combination of manual processes and limited automation to update and manage student information across the district's various systems. After extensive study and analysis, the Alvarado ISD administration, along with staff from the district's technology department, decided to find a more efficient and cost-effective solution for performing these tasks.

According to Kyle Berger, Executive Director of Technology Services for the Alvarado ISD, the transformation from manual to automated processes at the district occurred in several phases. "In the first phase, we established a zone integration server (ZIS) by Edustructures into the district's current Novell environment. The ZIS acted as the means of connection with the various systems already in place in the district," Berger says.

The second phase involved implementing Novell's Storage Manager to streamline the district's home directories. This made it possible to move directories and files automatically—without any staff intervention—when students went from school to school during their time in the district.

The third phase called for finding a student management system that could tie all of the other independently operating systems together with a single source of authority. These independent systems were inefficient and relatively expensive to maintain because of manual and automated processes that were often redundant and error prone.

Berger says a related and critical objective for the Alvarado ISD was finding a student management system that was aligned with the Student Interoperability Framework (SIF), the data-sharing open specification for K-12 academic institutions. By having a SIF-compliant student management system, the district would be able to better eliminate redundant data entry, increase efficiency and enhance software compatibility among its systems.

"A student management system by itself is just another database out on your network to manage," Berger says. "But a student management system with SIF interoperability is the powerhouse that can run your whole network for you."

The solution: the Skyward Student Management System

After a careful review of a number of different systems and vendors, the Alvarado ISD administration and technology department staff chose the Skyward Student Management System. Berger says the fact that Skyward's system was SIF compliant was a critical factor in the district's decision.

Berger says another reason why the Alvarado ISD chose Skyward was because of the company's sole focus on schools. "Schools are Skyward's only business. A lot of times when you look at student management systems out there, they are a subset of a bigger company that does all of these other things and that have their hands in lots of different areas. At Skyward, schools are their business and that's it," he says.

Skyward's advanced SIF interface provides greater system flexibility and efficiency

Berger says that when the Alvarado ISD first began to analyze and discuss ways to improve its systems, it was looking for a better way to do the processes in its old system. He says that Skyward offered the answer: a single database to run all of the district's applications out of, so that it had just one source to work with.

"These were just critically important things that I couldn't get out of my old application and still today can't get out of that application," Berger says. "But right out of the box I had that with Skyward."

Berger says that what sets Skyward apart from other vendors regarding SIF is the quality of the company's programming. "Skyward has a SIF interface that's already built in and that's very advanced and user friendly. It's very easy to use and it allows us to bring in applications ourselves. We can just go in and select our elements and be done. This is a very strong point for Skyward in the SIF area," he says.

He adds that Skyward's interface has more flexibility than any other interface in any other system he has ever seen. "And it has continued to evolve as the program grows and advances with SIF," he says.

Because of Skyward's advanced SIF configuration, Berger says the Alvarado ISD has been able to leverage the system's single source of authority and efficiently distribute data from the student information system to all other applications on the network. "This has allowed us to streamline many of our business processes, including scheduling, grading, attendance and health information," he says.

Berger says that the key for the Alvarado ISD was to have SIF operability with the Skyward Student Management System. "There is no better source of authority for a school district than your student management system. With Skyward, I have one source of authority for my HR information, payroll, accounting and student information. I have one spot to change it and one spot to add it, and I know that all of my information is good everywhere on the network," he says.

Skyward provides the Alvarado ISD with quantifiable time and cost savings

As a result of implementing the Skyward Student Management System and taking advantage of the solution's SIF-compliant aspects, Berger says the Alvarado ISD has realized quantifiable savings in personnel time. He says the district has succeeded in reducing some of its most basic recordkeeping processes, such as file updates when students move from one campus to another, dramatically shortening the time needed from as long as five days to as little as six seconds.

Berger says that cost savings from implementing the Skyward Student Management System have been significant as well. "Our first year alone with SIF, just on a network account basis managing students, we saved more than $16,000 in personnel time," he says.

Overall, when calculating time spent by staff related to their daily compensation rate, Alvarado ISD saves $5 every time a student enrolls and $2 when a student withdraws. In addition, when students graduate the district saves more than $400, and during the summer it saves $1,400 in preparing for the movement of students from campus to campus in the fall.

Alvarado ISD's SIF implementation with Skyward has brought more efficiency and more focus on academics

Berger says that the efficiency of his department has increased tremendously as a result of the SIF implementation with Skyward. "We have a lot of new applications that we are doing now that we wouldn't have been able to do in the past because of the time constraints of our day-to-day processes. To do what we are doing now without SIF would require more staffing just because of the automation that it has done for us," he says.

The SIF implementation with Skyward has also benefited the Alvarado ISD by enabling it to streamline numerous processes and as a result free up more employee time. "This has allowed us to open doors to other opportunities in our district and to focus more on educating our kids," he says.

In addition, Berger points out that the district has been able to put greater focus on technology integration in the classroom instead of having staff tied up with data entry tasks. Because of this shift in focus, students have gained an additional five days of computer instruction.

Conclusion: Skyward's technology and support add up to greater success for the Alvarado ISD

In looking back, Berger says it was a very easy decision to choose Skyward's student management system. "Skyward's interface and technology were hands-down way beyond anything else that was out there," he says.

What's more, Berger says Skyward's customer relations and support have been the best of any product or of any kind of student management system that he has ever worked with in education. "I get instant feedback if I make a call or place an online work ticket. And Skyward continually gives us SIF updates and software updates," he says.

"I've been very pleased with Skyward's software, and their dedication to schools is just a very important thing," Berger says. "Their strength in the SIF area has opened up so many cost savings for us in so many areas. The first year we saved $16,000 and that was a one-to-one application. Every time we add another application that figure just starts to double."