SIS / CIA Management Tools

PerformancePathways is an assessment and curriculum management system which is part of the PLUS 360 suite of software products offered by Sungard Systems. The student information system part of this suite is eSchoolPLUS, which is the SIS system used by the Reading School District. PerformancePathways is a suite of products which includes PerformanceTRACKER (for tracking student performance), AssessmentBUILDER (for building and scoring local benchmarks), and CurriculumCONNECTOR (for comprehensive, standards-based curriculum development and review). This is a web-based solution and provides support for Common Core Standards ("Performanceplus" )

PowerSchool is a web-based student information system which provides a number of different modules based on the needs of the individual school district. Some sample modules include Immunization and Health Screenings, Classroom Management, Scheduling, and Student / Parent modules ("Powerschool" ). There are a number of different individual modules and online demos to help the potential user understand the features of each software module.

My Learning Plan bills itself as “the leading PDMES (Professional Development Management and Evaluation System)” (“My Learning Plan”). This system is also web based and seems to be designed at more of a district level in order to manage professional development programs at the district, regional, and state levels. It seems to be more focused on professional growth than on student information systems that PerformancePathways and PowerSchool offer.

I find it interesting that there are probably a handful of companies who offer similar types of systems for school districts' use. I found the same thing when attempting to select a donor management system for the non-profit for which I worked. There were a minimal number of options with strong opinions about each one and what they could do. What I found was that there were multiple solutions that would work for our organization. There were not many features that made one solution better or worse than another. Of course, pricing became a factor, as it will for most any school district. And, the real key to having a successful implementation of software had more to do with the internal staff understanding their own organization's needs and working hand in hand with the software vendor to implement the solution.

Performanceplus. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.sungard.com/en/sitecore/content/campaigns/corporate/plus360/products/performanceplus.aspx

Powerschool. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.pearsonschoolsystems.com/products/powerschool

My Learning Plan. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mylearningplan.com/Content/Home/mlp.html