Students should expect to interact with a new software called Aspen in the fall as a replacement to Edline, and other changes are being developed and implemented across the district related to centralized data organization. Vice principal Mr. Mills said that “The system should be live in October, and we’ll probably show parents the new software at the open house”.

Mr. Richard Long Long, the IT manager who has helped to organize the changes across the district, said that a new fiber-optic network will connect the schools more easily. The schools will also upgrade to a high-speed internet. Because of the  large changes in the district, the district also decided to hire an information manager, Mr. Steve deProsse . Administrators and teachers are working across the district in order to organize and train on the new software.

Aspen, an educational software which organizes student grades, attendance, and other data, will replace edline as the primary way parents can check on their student’s grades. Because of the way Aspen works, teachers and administrators will be able to access a variety of student data across the district. One of the advantages of this change is easily transferring classes between schools over the summer.

Administrators in the school recognized a need for this change because of a decentralized method of organizing  student data, which sometimes required more steps than the new Aspen software in order to transfer data. In the past for instance, said school secretary Ms. Ward, “Gates would upload the data from the incoming freshman class”. Under the new internet-based Aspen software, there’s no need to upload or transfer each student, because the data is readily available to each administrator.

“One of the best things about Aspen is that it’s internet-based,” said Ms. Grindle, “not server-based”. She also said that another benefit was having each student arrive in the fall already equipped with data. For everyone involved in the process of transferring and maintaining data, the software is more user-friendly.

Students should expect direct contact with Aspen in the late fall. Regarding the implementation of the software, Mr. Mills said “It’s not one of those things that happen all at once, it’s when you choose to start using the different components of the software”. He also said that the school is beginning to train teachers, and that some elementary schools might begin to track student attendance as  soon as this spring.