The Coast Mountain School District is switching to a new student information database that is more intuitive and user-friendly.
The move is in line with a 2013 decision by the provincial education ministry to get rid of a former system called British Columbia Enterprise Student Information System (BCeSIS).
The ministry then signed a contract with Fujitsu Consulting to develop a new program, which was ready in 2014 and is known as MyEducationBC.
The Coast Mountains School District started training teachers on the new system in June.
Not publicly accessible, the database program logs all the student information from demographics and contact information to achievements, special education, and medical and custody alerts.
The old BCeSIS program was not very functional or user-friendly, said Janet Meyer, Director of Instruction, School Support at the Coast Mountains School District.
“I don’t think it lived up to its potential or our expectation of it… I am already farther along in MyEduBC then I ever was in BCeSIS simply because of its intuitiveness and its ease of use,” she said.
“It is so much easier to use.”
The school district conducted a brief refresher course for teachers on the first day of school yesterday, and will hold open houses throughout the fall for anyone with questions.
Meyer says an implementation team is in place offering a lot of support for teachers or staff as they get familiar with the new program.
In October, before the first report cards of the new school year are prepared, teachers will have one more training session about data entry.
MyEducationBC also has capabilities for parents and students to access certain information, but that will not be implemented this year.
The new system is being brought in gradually and Meyers says the parent and student portals will be introduced in future years.
That capability could have great potential, Meyers said.
“I am very optimistic about the success that we are going to have with [MyEducationBC] and the ability of people to use it in a meaningful way.”