Keeping track of students

By Rhonda Simmons

Published: April 17, 2008

Culpeper County Public Schools will convert to a new web-based student management system this fall allowing parents to view their children’s attendance, performance and homework assignments in real time.

Superintendent David Cox awarded the $183,000 contract to the Charlottesville-based company Tyler Technologies last month. Additionally, the school system will pay a $34,000 annual maintenance fee for upgrades, software and support based on the number of students.

“We are looking forward to providing parents with access to their child’s critical information. Moreover, we hope to tie more of our other systems — food service, transportation, reading and math monitoring programs — with Tyler’s system to create useful reports from which to make data-driven decisions,” said Eric Conti, CCPS assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. “It will (also) enhance our ability to have students sign up for courses online.”

The existing Student Accounts Student Information — owned and provided by Pearson — allows nine years of active data storage prompting school administrators to look for another system, according to CCPS Information Technology Director John Nicolay.

With the latest Culpeper addition, Tyler provides services for five Virginia districts.

John S. Marr Jr., president and CEO of Tyler Technologies, considers this latest agreement as confirmation of his company’s growth opportunity in the education market.

“Tyler’s Education Management solution offers a fully integrated system with rich functionality and impressive reporting capabilities to satisfy the specific needs of the education market,” he said.

CCPS has slightly more than 7,200 students in the county’s eight schools. This fall, school officials plan to open two more schools — Eastern View High School and Yowell Elementary School.

Of the 1,063 employees, about 535 are teachers.

Rhonda Simmons can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 125 or .