A new Student Information System (SIS) is in the works and it will allow staff, parents and students to have greater access to student information.

Madison School District staff have been using the current SIS — commonly known as the "AS400" -- for 18 years. The existing system is rapidly becoming outdated, and most importantly, is not accessible to parents and students.

The newer generation SIS, called Infinite Campus, will provide the computing framework for all functions related to managing student records, including such things as

• enrollment history
• demographics
• household information
• attendance
• scheduling
• grades
• test scores
• transcripts
• behavior
• health data

"The best part of the new SIS is that parents and students will have access online to their own student's complete information," said Kurt Kiefer, director of Planning/Research and Evaluation and the person who's leading this major change. "It's going to significantly improve the way student information is recorded and tracked."

For users such as staff and parents, the new SIS is easier to understand by highlighting some of its features:

• online teacher access to grade book and grade reporting
• seating charts with student pictures
• online enrollment and registration, which will eventually include parent self service
• online parent access to homework, attendance, grades, progress reports, schedules and discipline
• active alerts including health, behavior, attendance and family
• fees management, including waivers
• curriculum tracking and analysis

It will be a major change for teachers and most other staff members. As you can imagine, the planning has been taking place for months. The new SIS should go live prior to summer school 2006 or with the beginning of the 2006-07 school year.

"We would prefer to use the six weeks of summer school to manage the deployment concerns prior to the beginning of the new school year," said Kiefer. "We hope to have parent and student access available sometime during the first semester of the 2006-07 school year."

Questions can be referred to Kiefer via email at kkiefer@madison.k12.wi.us.