Warren County Schools will soon move to a high-tech way to track student grades and attendance.

The school system will transfer to a new student management system called Infinite Campus. The new system aims to improve how student records are managed, creating an easier way for teachers and parents to track students. It is scheduled to be installed during fall break.

“It’s more user-friendly,” said Pat Stewart, technology coordinator for Warren County Schools. “It’s more modern.”

Currently, each school has its own database, Stewart said. He said about 21 separate databases are maintained on seven or eight different main computers. The old system was client-server based, but the new system has one centralized database, which is accessible through the Internet.

“Client-server means that I have to have a server that is the home system and then the client would buy software that would have to be put on users’ computers, so anyone that had to use the system, would have to have the software put on their computer,” he said. “That’s not the case with the new system … you have to have a user name and password to get on there, but all you have to do is go to the Internet.”

With the new system in place, teachers, administrators and parents would get instant information, which is vital when it comes to attendance. Schools are held accountable for attendance, said Lisa Gross, director of communications for the Kentucky Department of Education. Under the Commonwealth Accountability Testing System, attendance counts toward a school’s overall index score, she said. Attendance is also the primary basis of how school districts are funded, Gross said. From year to year, funding can be affected by average daily attendance, she said

Under the old system, it would take 24 hours for attendance information to get back to the central office, Stewart said. With the centralized database, attendance information can be accessed as soon as it’s put into the system.

Another feature of the system is the parent portal, where parents will be able to access their child’s grades and track their progress in the classroom.

“Parents won’t have to wait to see how their child is doing grade wise,” Stewart said. “They won’t have to wait for a report card to come home. They can check grades as much as they want to.”

Teachers will also benefit.

“I think this will make teachers’ work easier,” he said. “With the old system, a teacher would have to integrate grades before school or after school. But with the new system, they’ll be able to access this from home.”

Warren East High School principal Cindy Beals said she thinks the new system will be a great program once the district figures out how to use it to its full capacity. She said the program being Internet-based gives teachers a lot of flexibility to work at home.

A concern Beals said she has stems from the timing of the transition. She said she hopes schools will be able to transfer students’ records without confusion.

“We are transitioning mid-stream through the school year,” she said. “Anytime you introduce something new, there’s a learning curve involved, but I think this system will do some neat things.

“We just have to have ample time to learn the program.”

Infinite Campus, a company based in Arden Hills, Minn., services more than 600 school districts in 24 states.

The state awarded a contract to Infinite Campus, Stewart said, and Warren County was picked as one of 19 pilot districts to use this system at no cost, he said. As a pilot program, the full features of the system won’t be rolled out completely at first, Stewart said.

“We’ll be testing things gradually, and once things are good, the components will be made available,” he said. “We just want to make sure everything is working like it should.”

The school system is looking to implement all components of the management system by January, Stewart said.