Michael... great question, but also a big question!
THE SHORT ANSWER: Systems like Veracross and Blackbaud offers a "single solution" that schools can use from Admissions to Alumni/Advancement, but each offers a different level of integration with other systems that your school maybe use (hence not a "single solution").
THE LONG ANSWER:Modern & Flexible - This can mean a lot and, depending on your needs, can be a fairly deep rabbit hole. By modern, do you mean fully browser-based with a robust API structure? Do you need to do a high level of customization to track specific information?
Play Nice Together - We all work in school and know what it is like to get children to play together... the same struggle applies across different systems. Several vendors offer competing products, and it is not in their interest or technically possible to offer seamless integration between vendors. They want you to be putting everything into their systems and don't have the time nor see the advantage to do so.
Many of the smaller, specialized systems (Health, Emergency Notification) offer robust API connections because it is in their best interest, and it only enhances their products.
Identifying the Problem and your Audience (Constituencies)- This is often where you should start. Forget about what systems to use and start with the issues you are trying to solve and the audience you are trying to appease. Talk to the various departments and help them identify their current workflows, bottlenecks, and needs. What would make their lives easier and more efficient? Then have a conversation about your audience... who will be using or interacting with these systems. Have the various department prioritize those various constituent groups. Should the system be easy for students and faculty to use? Do parents need access? How many passwords are we asking people to know and manage? If a system serves one group better than another, will we choose that or continue to do our own thing?
Systems Check - Once you have answered your key question, you need a nice, LONG list of things. These should be the items that each department/area has identified as important to them. Next, ask the department/areas to grade them and then provide that list (without the grading) to vendors and ask them to respond with as much detail as possible.
Put together a data map of where you are and where you might go-detail how the data will flow and how the systems are integrated. ATLIS has a great micro-course on this very topic.
In the End - Once you've done your due diligence, you can then bring the vendor in, have a good down and dirty discussion, and then decide.
For me... this was a process that took over a year. We not only talked to other various vendors but visited multiple schools. There were internal meetings, and we started the marathon process of implementation in the end. This is not a sprint and should not be treated as such.
This was a great process and taught us a lot as a school. It is also a process in that you can get help from other vendors like Educational Collaborators (FULL DISCLOSURE - I work with EC as a consultant).
This isn't giving you a product, but a process because what works well for one school might not always be the best for another. If you want to know what we use at my school, I'd be happy to discuss that with you and why...
------------------------------
William Stites
Director of Technology
Montclair Kimberley Academy
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 03-24-2022 12:17 PM
From: Michael Syrek
Subject: End to End SIS
In need of suggestions/opinions. We are looking into replacing our current SIS and wanted to know if anyone had recommendations or cautions about any of the solutions available these days. We currently use Senior Systems Advantage platform (under the Community Brands umbrella), but are looking for something more modern and flexible. Ideally we'd like a single system that handled everything from admissions through advancement, but are willing to use multiple vendors if they play nice together and we can get addresses and other crossover data to synchronize. We are a relatively small standalone high school of about 340 students. We currently use google classroom quite heavily, so bi-directional synch with google is important (but I'd be happy to dump classroom for something better, if available).
If you've got a product you like, please let me know about it!!
#General
#ITSystemsandSupport
------------------------------
Michael Syrek
University High School of Indiana
------------------------------