We also wanted to find a site that was using both a transportation system and a student information system, because it s very typical that these two systems don t talk to each other. Both systems track critical data on student addresses separately, and often the transportation system is more accurate than the student information system. It s a huge hole. The staff at Ballston Spa agreed. The idea that our student information database will be able to communicate with our transportation database is a wish come true, said Jayson Crair, database manager and guidance counselor at Ballston Spa.
Schools are notorious for duplication and redundancy.
I think we, as a public institution, have a responsibility to do things as cost effectively as we can. SIF is making our district a much more efficient and effective operation. The district also runs Microsoft SQL server and Microsoft Windows NT districtwide for LANs and WANs. For the pilot program, Ballston Spa s student data was copied to an SIF-enabled system that is running parallel to the old system still in place. The parallel system consists of a single database that accepts student information entered through Open District or VersaTrans.