Eight school divisions have now opted out of the new provincial student information system, but the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division is still on track for bringing it online for the new school year in September.
Board trustees heard an update on the system June 12 at their last meeting before they break for summer, including that some school boards have decided that the system won’t work for them.
Holy Family was concerned that this might affect the cost to them with the system now not covering the province as it was originally intended, said director of education Gwen Keith, who assured the board the cost, which will be about $8 per student, will not be affected.
She said the division still has time this summer to finish getting the system set up for the fall, and they are continuing to have contact with the Ministry of Education as they finalize the last details for the new system, which will include all information about each student in their division.
“What’s going to happen when this goes live, well, you can imagine. The pressure on the ministry people is going to be terrific,” said Keith.
“We’re on target, and the administrators will have their second meeting with the support staff to go through the components of the system. It’s already building for the next year,” she added.
Keith told the trustees she would love to show them some of the features of the new student information system, such as the new report cards that will be produced, but they won’t be able to show them until the fall.
“What we’ll do is show you the complete system in the fall, like for attendance,” said Keith, adding some aspects aren’t relevant for them as Holy Family is only kindergarten to Grade 9.
“How will this affect the program?” asked chair Bruno Tuchscherer.
“Well, with that many boards out of the picture, it’s not going to be a unified student information system,” Keith replied, who suggested part of the challenge is they gave the school boards the choice of opting out of the provincial system.
The boards that are out “aren’t confident that the provider will have the resources needed, and they are not prepared to wait. I think people wanted to be prepared, but they needed clear answers which they weren’t getting,” said Keith. “It’s not a comfortable piece at all. If people aren’t getting the information they need, they’re not going to risk it.”
She added that Holy Family is confident that they can do it and that the system will work for them. They also still have their current system, called Maplewood, as a backup if the new system doesn’t work.
