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Students Achieve System (SAS)
Submitted by: Stonepark Home and School Association
Resolution Content
WHEREAS the Student Achieve System (SAS) is an existing, evidence based, available communication medium which can support the education community and parents; and
WHEREAS parents find this to be a valuable tool in supporting their child’s education; and
WHEREAS the PEI Department of Education and Early Childhood Development has recently completed a review of the SAS which recommended additional support and resources for the SAS; and
WHEREAS there is a "Provincial Student Achieve Committee” with representatives from the IT Shared Services, school boards, but no parent representation;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the PEIHSF request the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to fully fund and support the Student Achieve System or similar software program to make available an online communication tool for province-wide parental access that displays test scores, grades, assignments, behavioural issues and attendance on a stable, consistent, user-friendly system; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the PEIHSF urge the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to work with the PEI Teacher's Federation to ensure adequate training is provided to teachers to ensure consistency of usage across the province, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the PEIHSF request that a PEIHSF representative position be added to the "Provincial Student Achieve Committee.”
Saturday, April 17, 2010
| Destination: | Department of Education and Early Childhood Development English Language School Board French Language School Board PEI Teachers Federation |
Responses Received
Education and Early Childhood Development: The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development purchases the license and provides resources to school boards to support teachers in the use of SAS. Although the software has been available to all schools, some technical challenges have been identified and IT Shared Services have allocated considerable resources to rectify the situation. More monitoring needs to be done before stability is assured in all schools. The Minister's Advisory Committee on Technology is presently considering a three year plan that would outline time lines for requiring teachers to provide information to parents through SAS. The implementation of the plan will depend on available resources. The Students Achieve Provincial Committee's mandate is to address technical and training issues. It does not make decisions on who uses SAS or on how SAS is used because the levels of use have been, for the most part, a school by school decision.
Eastern School District: The Minister's Advisory Committee on communication and Information Technology will be making a recommendation to the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development on an implementation schedule for use of StudentsAchieve. This recommendation will consider appropriate use at each grade level, technology infrastructure, and training for teachers. The Eastern School District is supportive of the committee's recommendation.
Western School Board: The value of such administrative software to our staffs, students and parents is obvious. It is the rate of implementation across all schools that has been problematic. While staff training may be one area of concern, I believe it is less so than the technological issues of Internet speed and appropraite hardware to support a dependable, stable web-based enviornment in which to use the software. Despite best intentions of many schools and indivdiual teachers to fully use StudentsAchieve, the ongoing issues of response time caused by either the Internet and/or the harware have served to discourage many initiatives over the past few years. Given a robust, dependable system which would provide the features to teachers and parents offered by StudentsAchieve, we would be able to advance this service in a timely, responsible manner to the collective benefit of all partners.