By Eve Rosen
The Palm Beach County School District is launching a new communications platform to replace Edline called the Student Information System (SIS) Gateway. A workshop was held Aug. 2 at Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington in order to demonstrate what has changed and the benefits of the new system.
SIS Gateway is a new, mobile-friendly platform that took about five years to fully develop. It originally launched during a pilot test in which nine schools were given a two-month period to test the gateway product.
During the time that it was tested, the users were able to provide feedback, which helped the developers to make improvement upon the Edline replacement.
SIS will affect every public school in Palm Beach County from elementary to high school, and it offers many improvements over the previous Edline system.
Parents and students will get immediate access to schedules, grades, assignments, GPA, graduation requirements and much more. Parents will be able to set up phone notifications if their child’s grade slips below a certain level. For example, if a parent’s grade threshold is set to a B, and their child’s grade drops below that, they will get a notification.
Grades will be updated in real time, so as soon as the child’s teacher inputs the grade, parents and students will be able to see it the moment it goes in.
“This will keep our teachers more on the ball because they will be held to these expectations to get their student’s grades in on time,” said Darren Edgecomb, the principal at Palm Beach Central High School.
Palm Beach Central was one of the nine pilot schools to test the gateway, which is one of the reasons why the workshop was held there.
Using the SIS Gateway requires no extra training for teachers because the most important things that the teachers will need will be right in front of them, including a calendar feature, which will allow for the teachers to upload important dates, such as when the class will have a test.
The cost of this program is considered revenue neutral because it has saved Palm Beach County money by replacing the previous platform and also taking in the Gradebook program used by teachers.
Funding for the project came from the school district’s capital budget.
SIS Gateway went live on Aug. 6, and parents should be receiving a letter in the mail that will explain the SIS Gateway and how to login to get student information.
