[school-discuss] Student Information Systems

["Pastor Doug Coats" <dcoats@heritagemail.org>]

I have been a silent member of this group for a while because I wanted to
see what the Linux world offered world of education and simply because the
culture of my school is not ready for huge Linux invasion.

We are currently thinking about changing our SIS and I was wondering what
your schools use to manage information about your students.  We currently
use SchoolMinder by Hunter Systems and we have simply outgrown it as our
school continues to mature.  We are looking fairly favorably toward
PowerSchool for four advantages that it would give us.

	1.  It is web based and totally customizable
	2.  It's accessibility by admin, teachers, students, and parents
	3.  It's scheduling ability
	4.  Teachers adding grades directly - less work for office staff

These stand out over our currant system which simply tacks our students
using an Access database and tends to be to complicated in generating
specialized reports.

Is there a Linux system we should consider?  We already run Linux on our
Gateway and File servers so the implementation of a Linux solution might be
a lot easier than adding an Apple box to the network mix.

Thanks

Doug