Bay-Arenac ISD Selects Online Assessment Tool To Measure Students’ Mastery Of State Standards (4/17/08)

Effective Data Management Moves From The Classroom To The Lunchroom (4/16/08)

STI Partners With Three Market Leaders To Enhance Its Web-Based Student Information System For Schools (4/15/08)

STI Names Ruby McCullough As New Chief Executive Officer (4/14/08)

Sandoval Schools(IL) Choose STI for Student Information System (3/08)

STI Moves Headquarters to USA Technology and Research Park (8/07)

STI ADDS PROFESSIONAL COACHING TO STUDENT ASSESSMENT TO INCREASE EFFICACY (7/07)

Since NCLB was enacted, schools have begun collecting and tracking student performance data through newly acquired assessment systems. However, educators often face the challenge of analyzing and using the data to improve student learning with little training or prior experience. In response to customer demand, STI, a leading provider of education data management systems, today launches STI Achievement Services. Created as an integral component of the company’s assessment business, the new offering is a blended model of face-to-face and web-based professional development for instructors using best practices to facilitate increases in student achievement. Read Entire Article

Online Progress Reports Available,
Dixie Elementary Offers Parents a Heads-Up Via Internet (2/07)

Parents of students at Dixie Elementary School no longer have to wait on report cards to know how their child is progressing in school. Parents can now check their grades over the Internet thanks to STI Education Data Management Solutions.
The software program gives parents access to grades and also lets them know if their child has been absent or had any behavior problems.
"I've already had three or four parents sit with me and work the program and they're excited," said Rusty Baker, the principal at Dixie.
Parents in Russell County School District will be able to view the information after it is uploaded by teachers at the school, something Baker said will be done regularly. Dixie will offer STI training to parents at the PTA meeting next Thursday. To gain access to their child's information, parents will need a PIN and identification number, which Baker said the school will provide.
Dixie is the only school in the Russell County School District using STI. The program is very popular in neighboring districts. Phenix City and Lee County schools use STI programs. The Muscogee County School District does not use STI.
Baker said one of the advantages of the program is parents can monitor their child's progress on a weekly basis. Before, they would have to wait on report cards, progress reports or go to the school and have a parent-teacher conference.
STI, or Software Technology Inc., is headquartered in Mobile, Ala. According to its Web site, STI has more then 6,000 schools under contract in 28 states.

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (GA) - February 8, 2007

New Information Systems Track Student Progress (1/07)

... Another Alabama district, in Oxford City, with 4,000 students in six schools, selected a different system, InformationNOW, developed by STI, based in Mobile, Ala.

"We were doing multiple programs for grades, attendance, special ed and other things, and pulling the data together manually," says Eric Burrage, the district's director of operations and technology. Now Oxford City teachers enter data on student grades, attendance and other key areas into computers on their desks. Each school office correlates its teachers' reports, and the district office uploads the school reports into a centralized database every night, Burrage explains.

InformationNOW integrates the data to allow users to create reports with the information they need. While school principals can get daily attendance updates on their home pages when they log in, the district curriculum director can quickly access assessment data. ...

To read the full article, visit District Administration.

Leave No Administrator Behind (9/06)

Supervisors need to shore up their skills, too. The Illinois Association of School Administrators (IASA) helps school leaders keep their administrative certificates current by using STI. Its applications provide members with an online system to track their required and elective professional development activities. Users can manage and amend their personal transcripts simply by logging on, even if they're on sabbatical or working in another state.

To read the full article, visit Scholastic Administrator.

Tech Tools: Management (9/06)

To read the full article, visit Scholastic Administrator.

New Tools for Schools (8/15/06)

The InformationNOW Web-based reporting tool has been expanded to include a student information system. InformationNOW is designed to allow educators and administrators the ability to search multiple data sets for producing reports, track data over time, and create custom reports using the system's query tools.

To read the full article, visit techLearning.com.

Schools post homework assignments online (7/28/06)

A student comes home from school, drops off his backpack and runs out to play with his friends. His mother tells him he has to do his homework first. He yells that he doesn't have any as he flies out the front door.

But how does a parent know for sure?

That task is easy now for any parent with a computer and Internet access. This year will be the first that all public schools in Mobile and Baldwin counties are connected to a computer system that allows parents to check their children's grades, homework assignments and disciplinary reports online.

Some schools in the two counties have used the STI Home system in the past, and the response from parents prodded the expansions for 2006-07.

Checking grades via the Web has been "enormously popular" among parents, said Baldwin school board spokesman Terry Wilhite.

"It's one of the things that mamas and daddies enjoy," Wilhite said. "Kids tend not to be so excited about it."

To read the full article, visit The Mobile Press-Register.

Jemison High receives grant for technology (7/19/06)

The new school year brings new technology to Jemison High School, thanks to the generosity of state Rep. Jimmy Martin.

Martin presented Assistant Principal Donna Giles with a $5000 grant for the school to purchase STI Home. This computer program will allow parents and students to view grades, class schedules, attendance records, discipline records, activity announcements, notes from teachers and homework assignments on a day-to-day basis...

To read the full article, visit The Clanton Advertiser.

State will track pupils with ID number (7/17/06)

The kindergartners who start school in Alabama next fall will get an accessory that will follow them through the discoveries of elementary school to junior high's adolescent angst and the tumultuous teenage years of high school.

It's what state educators call a "unique student identifier:" a student ID number that won't change throughout their classroom years in Alabama public schools.

The 2006-2007 school year is the first in which every single student in the state's school system, more than 740,000 in K-12, will get a random 12-digit number, allowing them to be tracked from school to school, year after year, throughout the state...

To read the full article, visit The Birmingham News.

STI Special Education Tracking System (SETS)

A K–12 solution for online data management of special education services, the STI Special Education Tracking System (SETS) allows users to track student IEPs, facilitate referrals, monitor student screenings and status, and more—including the ability to quickly pinpoint which students need more intervention. SETS integrates with STI’s Student Information Systems, which teachers and administrators can access on the school and district level.

To read the full article, visit Scholastic Administrator

Three Big Deals (5/06)

STI, provider of education data management solutions for K–12 schools, partnered with Fairbanks LLC and the Alabama Association of School Boards (AASB) to assist Alabama school systems in tracking special education services and facilitating the Medicaid billing process. The Medicaid Direct Service Claiming program, started by the partnership, began in the summer of 2005 and is being rolled out across the state. With the help of the program, Alabama school systems collectively may recoup an additional $10 million to $15 million annually in Medicaid reimbursements.

To read the full article, visit Scholastic Administrator

BOA Welcomes New Member; Prepares for New Software (3/30/06)

During the past two months the Blackwell Board of Education has welcomed a new board member and has tackled a change in software providers...

...The other major change for the BOA has been in computer software providers. Central Associates, with whom Blackwell had contracted for a student information system, rescinded all contracts with Oklahoma schools. Having to go back to the proverbial drawing board, the district interviewed five companies and made “numerous contacts” with customers of each firm.

They wound up going with STI -Student Information Systems, a Mobile Alabama company in business since 1982. According to the STI Web site, the provide a “fully integrated suite of products addresses attendance, scheduling, special education, assessment, discipline, grade reporting, professional development, fund accounting, health, and parent/teacher communications.”

“We’re very excited about the possibilities with this new system,” Ward said. “It covers enrollment, transportation, development, and can be used for instructional purposes.”

The firm strives to provide “data driven decision making” through the software, allowing school districts to track individual students throughout their school careers, test-by-test or through other criteria.

“We haven’t had that capability before,” Ward said. “It will allow us to make an assessment of each student and see what concepts each one has mastered and what needs to be repeated.”

The board approved STI as its provider in February...

— Blackwell Journal-Tribune, Blackwell OK (3/09/06)

You've got mail: Schools alert parents to problems (3/27/06)

Parents of Hinds County students will begin receiving this week e-mails or text messages the same day their child is absent, has disciplinary problems or is struggling in the classroom.

New technology being incorporated into the district's student information system will allow administrators to send such information, said James Mason, director of curriculum and instruction.

"As instances occur, it can automatically send an e-mail to a parent," Mason said.

The district's current program, Software Technologies Inc. Home, is a free service that allows parents to log on to the district's Web site and find out information about their child's grades and attendance with a pin number and their child's Social Security number.

Lisa Griffin logs onto STI Home regularly to monitor her son's progress at Terry High School.

"I check that periodically to check my son's grades, which is really, really helpful," she said.

The Five C's of Data-driven Decision Making (1/06/06)

Clearly, district technology directors and administrators view data-driven decision making as a top priority. According to recent data from QED’s 10th Annual “Technology Purchasing Forecast,” 30 percent of school districts plan to increase spending on administrative software systems. In the 2004-05 school year, 77 percent (up from 38 percent) of districts planned to purchase student information systems, 71 percent (up from 24 percent) planned to purchase assessment software, and 35 percent planned to purchase special education software, a dramatic increase over 2003-04 projections. The QED report indicates that schools have taken a page from the book of business management and are making a serious commitment toward data collection and reporting.

Administrators understand the big data picture and the need to measure return on investment. They envision the promise of data-driven decision making to increase student achievement and enable better education management. However, much of the data are compiled in separate systems, and widespread data integration is not occurring in schools today. In some instances, large districts are experiencing difficulties connecting and using disparate data.

Our goal as an industry must be to turn data into key information that is readily accessible and meets educators’ needs with respect to teaching and learning, school management and accountability mandates.