A ppleis education software division, PowerSchool, has announced a new version of PowerSchool called PowerSchool SIS 2004. PowerSchool is Appleis education software solution for managing attendance, communications, grades, and other aspects of education system. The new version offers new scheduling features, enhanced reports, and more. From Apple:
PowerSchool today announced the availability of PowerSchool SIS version 2004. The upgrade is one of the most significant of PowerSchoolis recent versions, including more than 100 new features.
Version 2004:
- builds upon its scheduling strengths to provide walk-in scheduling automation;
- increases flexibility and usability for meeting NCLB requirements;
- streamlines reports to help minimize data entry and increase system run-time performance;
- includes a SIF agent for schools interoperability framework readiness; and
- includes state specific special compliance enhancements.
Among the new features in PowerSchool 2004 is automated walk-in scheduling capability which will allow users to easily and automatically enroll students into existing sections based on their requests. This will save time over manual walk-in scheduling capability formerly available and will allow more flexibility for administrators, as well as additional preferences, section types, and course relationships. This relieves the grueling staff overload associated with last-minute schedule changes as students return to school from summer break.
Users of PowerSchool 2004 will further appreciate increased flexibility and reduction in data entry for discipline and activity log reporting and multi-level searching within logs to meet NCLB requirements regarding student incident tracking. Logs will also include flexibility for attendance tracking down to the minute, section and code. Parents with access to PowerSchool will be able to view historical data regarding discipline and extracurricular activities, rather than only data for the current academic year, further supporting the NCLB mandate to improve parental involvement. Overall, reports have been optimized to reduce data entry requirements and to improve run-time performance by as much as 50 percent.
The PowerSchool SIS 2004 SIF agent will provide schools with the appropriate tools for tight integration, through real-time data exchange, with other administrative systems such as transportation, library, curriculum and other SIF-compliant applications. The SIF Implementation Specification makes it possible to share data without any additional programming by the local school or district.
The press release also notes that the update also supports special state requirements in California, Texas, and Arizona. You can find more information on PowerSchool at Appleis Web site. Pricing is handled directly through Apple.