What’s an SIS for K-12 schools, and why you need one

What is a SIS for K-12 schools?

A SIS for K-12 schools — with SIS being the acronym for “Student Ιnformation System” — is a software solution designed to automate, monitor, support, and support tasks, processes and operations, within K-12 schools. With it, schools that include any of the grades from kindergarten to high school, are able to smoothen all of their administrative operations.   

When to use a SIS for K-12 schools?

A SIS for K-12 schools is ideal for any type of school in the K-12 program. It’s ideal for schools, regardless if they’re private or public, religious or community, and so forth. The level of the school — primary, middle, high, or combined — as well as the staffing characteristics, does not restrict the adoption of a relevant solution. And that includes having a single secretary or additional clerical staff. On the contrary, quite the opposite is true. That is to say, it’s all the more so, when said personnel spends a large portion of time on activities associated with student affairs, curriculum-related activities and administrative tasks, and so forth.

How core functionality found in a SIS for K-12 schools applies to school administration

Solutions classified as SIS for K-12 schools are built aiming to make administrators’ daily routines more time-effective. To further explain, with them people that hold managerial and/or secretarial roles in K-12 schools are able to perform day-to-day tasks more efficiently. In a similar fashion, they can also deal with a series of administrative challenges much more effectively than they would without it. Thus, the functionality to be found in a SIS for K-12 school matches the tasks and responsibilities listed in a K-12 school administrators job specification. And on top of that, this functionality also matches with the nitty gritty fundamentals of how to practice school management in an educational organization. Below is a list of the core features found in a SIS for K12 schools.

Run student admission process

With a SIS for K-12 schools there is no need to burden the administrative personnel with managing tons of paper workloads, so as to admit new students or register existing ones. All that is needed is to simply make the most out of the available, ready-made, customizable and easy-to-share digital admission forms.

Manage student records

In a similar fashion, digital student cards make it easier to store all required information in fields and forms, in seconds. And, this way, one can manage to have their student data arranged neatly and in order, and also available to access it from wherever they are.  

Support curriculum implementation 

Another key feature of a SIS for K-12 schools is that it helps school administrators, teachers and roles responsible for developing and implementing curriculum to ensure standards are met. 

With digital classes, subjects, courses as building blocks in one’s arsenal, one has got everything they need to structure their school program online and start working on it. Not to mention, they can easily divide students to levels and groups and make the most out of their digital representation of classrooms.  

Manage teachers

A SIS for K-12 schools does support only tasks and processes relevant to your students’ management. Once recruitment of new staff members is completed you are ready to make the most of the available auxiliary functionality relevant to teacher management. More specifically, you can register teachers in your system by storing their personal and contact information in ready-made, customizable digital profiles. Thus, you have adequate and reliable information, relevant to your teachers, gathered in one place. And not only this, available reporting functionality helps you be in the know of the number of lessons each one of your teachers has completed, within a specific period of time. Functionality, such as the aforementioned, allows you to make strategic decisions, such as how you’ll distribute teaching assignments; and to also manage relevant routine tasks more efficiently.

Develop class schedules

Make the scheduling process optimal, with online digital calendars for each one of your classes. Automate the way you schedule one-off and repetitive lessons, specify duration, assign a teacher and book a classroom, in advance. While scheduling lessons for all of your classes, you can get notifications on conflicts in teacher assignments and/or classrooms already occupied; but schedule lessons anyway and manage conflicts later on. Finally, you can make bulk modifications on your calendar, all at once, by editing recurrence rules for repetitive lessons.

Track student attendance

With a SIS for K-12 schools you can track student attendance online. And by making use of available attendance utilities, such as setting the status of all students at once (present, unexcused absence, expulsion, late etc.), adding comments and specifying minutes they’ve run late, you manage to track attendance in seconds. Moreover, having all attendance data stored online, you can also make use of the attendance reports automatically created for you. This way, you save yourself and your personnel time that would alternatively be spent on tasks, such as creating and distributing attendance reports, and so forth.

Manage student performance

With a student information system for K-12 schools, you’ll enjoy full automation in performance management. More specifically, you can make the most out of the customized digital gradebooks you can create in seconds, using one of the multiple grading systems available to you. In a similar fashion, automated calculations, such as class average and the option to create your own customized gradebook templates and reuse them in all of your classes, saves extra time from teachers and administrators.

Manage tuition fee collection

Based on how you manage your school’s tuition fees — in case you have a relevant policy — you are, then, able to oversee and better manage your school budget. A case in point is a SIS for K-12 schools that helps you digitize and automate tuition fee management. In particular, you can create one-off, monthly and periodic fees for all the classes of your school, with only a few clicks. Also, you can make tuition fee collection faster for your personnel, as you’ll release them from time-consuming paper-based processes. And, in a similar fashion, guardians autonomously pay up issued invoices using various digital payment options. Last, but not least, with detailed reporting you can keep tabs on tuition fee totals (paid, unpaid, overdue fees), create summaries and notify en masse parents and guardians, if needed. 

What are the benefits of using a SIS for K-12 schools?

If you decide to adopt a SIS for K-12 schools, you’ll find the aforementioned features, along with additional functionality and utilities, in a solution such as DreamClass; which will offer you the following benefits: 

• Reduce paperwork with automation in various administrative tasks.
• Go paperless and reduce your school’s environmental impact. Have all students’ and school data stored online, on your system, with role-based access, as to who will be able to view and/or edit specific information.   
• Make light work of your school’s admission cycle, reducing the time spent on relevant tasks to a minimum; and helping parents and students proceed with their applications autonomously, on their time. 
• Prepare your K-12 digital school schedules without a hitch, have them shared online, accessible to teachers, students and guardians from their portals. In a similar fashion, oversee daily scheduled school activities, in a blink.   
• Track attendance in seconds and have daily attendance records shared with teachers and parents from their portals. Notify guardians on students’ absences, on time. Spend no time to prepare attendance records before you evaluate student performance. 
• Keep a firm grip on the tuition fee collection process, notifying parents en masse, with respect to their due payments or any other issue they may be concerned about. 
• Increase student engagement and commitment, allowing students to get access to their profile, where they are able to contact teachers and classmates, if needed; and to also view notes and daily calendar.
• Help teachers sync with students, with respect to assignments and class notes, with out-of-school-hours interactions; if needed.