SD8 board blasts Province on inadequate reporting software
By Nelson Daily Editor
By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily
The tools the Province has given Kootenay Lake School District No. 8 to handle student information has come under the gun.
A letter has been sent by SD8’s board of trustees to the Ministry of Education requesting something be done about the archaic nature of the system, the British Columbia Enterprise Student Information System (BCeSIS).
BCeSIS is the implementation of a common student information system by independent schools and school districts of BC. It is a centrally hosted, web accessible student information system that allows student data to be shared within the school district, as well as the Province.
The school district’s new superintendent of schools, Jeff Jones, said the software the Province is requesting they use is sorely inadequate to attend to the use required, considering the number of users and students in the province.
“There have been a large number of challenges to our staff,” he said. “Times when the system is down, times when the system is freezing and they lose data entered, have caused a great deal of problems for well-intended staff who would like to do the work required of them, but are in a position of having to re-do work.”
The program doesn’t allow teachers to sort students into their timetables properly, leading to innumerable problems for the staff, said Jones.
“This is a serious issue, both in the amount of human resource time that is being spent … and to meet the Province’s requirements,” he said.
This is a problem that other school districts in the province have encountered. As a result, the BC School Trustees Association has formed a motion that they will send to the ministry that the program is an inappropriate taxation on staff and limited resources.
The program is used by teachers, support staff and administrators, providing data on student enrollment, organization of students into timetables and demographic information — such as the age of students in different areas.
As well, there are specific reporting requirements that the school district employees have to adhere to by legislation. By Oct. 1, Jones has to provide school trustees and parent advisory committees, that the schools are organized in such a way that is satisfactory for the learning requirements of students (class size, special learning needs).
But the program largely slows or disables attempts to adequately file that data, said Jones.
Using the Teacher Assistant interface, the teacher has access to student demographics and contact information, as well as details regarding the students’ performance, programs and special education needs.
BCeSIS gathers attendance in the classroom using an electronic attendance checklist and allows both the teacher and the office to share information regarding student absences.
In early September, BCeSIS drew attention across the province for slow performance that hampered the efforts of schools to make timetable changes, process student transfers, and complete attendance.
With new school districts using the service, the creators, Fujitsu Service Desk, were forced to limit the number of logins and post “BCeSIS unavailable” messages during peak usage hours.
