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Updated April, 2006
Q. When will staff be trained?
A. There are three basic components of teacher training in Infinite Campus: 1) basic navigation and attendance, 2) grade posting and progress reports, and 3) gradebook.
Training for teaching staff will occur on the basic navigation steps in the Infinite Campus as well as taking attendance online in 45 minute sessions scheduled throughout the day at schools on Friday, September 1. Training for how to post quarter/term grades as well as mid-term progress reports will occur just-in-time closer to those events. Training on use of an electronic, online gradebook in Infinite Campus will be conducted in sessions both BEFORE school resumes (i.e., mid August) and again throughout the school year.
Q. Will teachers be able to access the report card site at any time?
A. The Infinite Campus system was selected in part because it is entirely web-based and may be accessed from any computer that can access the Internet. The system is designed to operate 24/7.
Q. Will teachers be able to work on report cards from home? What kind of programs will be needed to do this?
A. Teachers will be able to work on report cards, progress reports, and the gradebook from home as long as their home computer can access the Internet. The only plug-in needed is Java, and that is free to download just like the very common Adobe Acrobat product.
Q. Will there be a "grade book" kind of program that correlates to the report card program?
A. There will be a grade book program. It will "talk to" the report card program. If a teacher elects to use the electronic, online gradebook tool, posting the grades for progress reporting or quarter/term report cards is about as easy as clicking a button. Q. How is the District guaranteeing that all teachers who are required to do this will have the means at school to do this when they have the time? Sharing computers does not work when you have a deadline.
A. Efforts are being made to ensure that each classroom has a computer that meets the performance standards needed to take attendance and to do grading. In addition, there are also quantities of these performance level computers in other common areas of the school, e.g., staff work spaces, department offices, LMC's, etc.
Q. How is the District guaranteeing that there will be adequate training for all teachers that accommodates our various schedules (e.g., teaching, SIP Committee's, Clubs and after school responsibilities to our families and ourselves)?
A. To the greatest extent possible, training opportunities directed at teacher functions and tasks will be scheduled at school locations. There will be designated, school-based teacher and building Infinite Campus "coaches" who perform these training sessions. These trainers will schedule sessions in the manner that meets the needs of individual school staff. In addition, districtwide trainers will provide sessions at varying locations and times to ensure that the variety of staff schedules can be accommodated.
Q. How will teachers be compensated for this time? Pay or credit? If a teacher no longer needs PAC credit how will he/she be compensated?
A. Compensation for teacher training will follow rules established in the collective bargaining agreement.
Q. Will every building have a "Go-To" person? How will teachers be guaranteed that the person is available when needed? How will this person be compensated for all the hours s/he will need to put in?
A. We are proposing that each school have their own Infinite Campus "coaches," one for all IC functions and another devoted to just those parts of IC that teachers use, i.e., basic navigation, attendance, grade reporting, and gradebook. Principals would designate who the coaches are in their buildings following a list of roles and expertise. It is particularly important to keep availability in mind when selecting a coach as questions could come up at about any time during a school day. Compensation for coaches must follow the collective bargaining agreements.
Q. What about teachers who do not have computers at home? Can they grade at home?
A. Teachers certainly may grade students at home if they do not have a home computer, however, they must then enter their grades into an Internet accessible computer at another location, e.g., school, library, community center, etc.
Q. Please explain the reason for this change at this time, when we face so many challenges. Also, please let us know how this is to evolve. For example, when will we be doing on-line attendance, open gradebooks and such? In other words, what is your five year plan?
A. This change is being made at a time when districts of our same size as well as most of the surrounding Dane County school district have already moved to this process. MMSD is behind in this area. That said, MMSD launched electronic, online attendance taking and grade reporting at the elementary school level three years ago.
The plan is to have all staff at all schools recording attendance, progress reports, and quarter/term grades online beginning with the 2006-07 school year. With the appropriate support this process change can be made smoothly. This has been demonstrated to us through a thorough review process involving dozens of MMSD staff over the past 18 months with numerous school districts who are using Infinite Campus — many of these districts being much larger and more urban than MMSD.
The web-based information becomes another effective way to build home-school communications. Our hope is to have some information, e.g., attendance and schedules, available to parents during the latter portion of the 2006-07 school year. Other information will be rolled out in a structured and thoughtful manner over time.
Q. Can the gradebook be organized by book and by standard? Should add an "all comments" at the end?
A. The gradebook can be organized by standards within subjects. There will be a "Comments" feature that allows staff to select comments from a list and they will be able to apply a comment to all students in a group.
Q. Can a 3 / 4 on a rubric be calculated to 90% or an A/B? Will it have to be calculated to 75%?
A. The Infinite Campus gradebook provides the flexibility for this sort of grading scheme.
Q. Will there be a grace period where parents will not have access to the system until we work out the kinks and get good at using the system?
A. The parent portal to Infinite Campus will be rolled out later in the 2006-07 school year. Inevitably, there are always data issues that must be corrected including associations between students and adults. These must be 100% correct prior to parent rollout. In addition, it is imperative that staff are trained and comfortable with the use of Infinite Campus prior to making the system available for parents.
Q. Will there be a place where the parents can check on homework/upcoming assignments?
A. The Infinite Campus system comes with both a gradebook and lesson planner. If teachers use these tools the information contained in them may be posted to the parent portal. In those cases, parents may certainly use the system to monitor their child's completion of homework assignments.
Q. Will we be starting the year out on the new system or will we have to transfer information from another program after the academic year has started?
A. All information currently contained in the hundreds of database tables that comprise our current student information system are being converted into the new Infinite Campus database tables. All information will have been converted by the time school resumes in September 2006, and should be done well in advance of staff training in August.
Q. Do we have the infrastructure to pull this off, everyone in the district working on the same system at the end of the quarter, progress report time, etc.? What is the back up plan if the system crashes?
A. One of the appealing features of the Infinite Campus system is the hosting service they provide. Our contract with the company guarantees services levels. If these are not met, i.e., the system crashes for more than a couple hours for reasons beyond their control, they are not paid for the service. In addition, the company provides a fully functional remote "warm site" for crisis recovery and backup purposes. The company continuously monitors our servers and if a problem is detected we can be switched to a different server in a different location almost immediately. The company also monitors performance of the servers installed at the MMSD data center and must routinely upgrade these if performance levels are not met.
Q. How will subs gain access to your information?
A. This is an issue that has yet to be resolved although every district using a system like Infinite Campus must come up with itsr own policy and procedure. We hope to have this defined by the end of this school year and to include the process in training that occurs in summer.