School Information System - WCBVI

WSVH serves blind and visually impaired students for the state of Wisconsin. Students range from Kindergarten to post secondary studies, and each student has a custom education plan which includes an IEP.

WSVH has all the requirements of normal public K-12 school – attendance, demographics, health, gradebook, discipline, etc., but it also has a need for “assisted learning” tools as a number of the instructors at the school are also visually impaired. Focus's school information system was the only solution that could provide a fully functional school information management system, and most importantly, it was the only system that could seamlessly interface with such tools as the JAWS Screen Reader software for Windows from Freedom Scientific.

The staff are able to customize their "view" of the screen using the unique preferences module of Focus's school information system. These preferences allow the screen readers to more effectively communicate with the handicapped staff and "hear" where they are in the system, what tabs they are entering information on, etc. By reading the HTML header tags in Focus/SIS, the teachers can navigate through the most advanced gradebook on the market place and know which student and assignment they are grading and what score they are entering. Enabling visually impaired staff to use the electronic gradebook is a major accomplishment for the system, and now the staff can enter their scores and comments and not have to have the information transcribed by a nearsighted individual as they did with their previous school management information system.

WSVH has also adopted the use of the Focus Forms Builder.  All of Wisconsin Individual Education Program forms were built using the Forms Builder and a straight forward tab is created for each form needed for the students. A complete history is kept of the forms built and modified, and all match the Wisconsin DPI requirements. The tool is so intuitive that Kim Heimerl, the school’s IEP Coordinator, is now modifying the tabs and the forms to meet WSVH’s needs without requiring support from Focus.

Focus's school administration software is meeting and exceeding the school’s expectations for their new tool. Reports – accurate and timely – are now generated directly from the system, and the office staff are able to build their own custom reports and letters using the intuitive Ad Hoc Reporting Tool. They are also using the letter and e-mail triggers functionality to send notifications to parents and other users when certain thresholds and criteria are met. So far Focus School Software has provided much more functionality than was called for in the school RFP for a school management software.

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