Why use SDS?
We have been working with SDS for over 15 years and have
grown along with the software. Our most recent venture into
the SDS Grade book and Parent Connect has been hugely
successful in the eyes of both our staff and parents. Our
staff had used a different stand-alone electronic grade book
for many years. At the beginning of the 2007 – 2008 school
year, we introduced SDS Grade book as another option for our
teachers and Deb Richards spent a day in the District doing
a group presentation in the morning and being available for
the rest of the day to answer questions for those who were
interested in trying the SDS Gradebook. At about that same
time, our Board mandated that grades be made available to
parents on-line. The other software vendor promised that
they would be able to support this effort, so teachers had
the option of remaining with the grade book they had used
for years or change to SDS. About one third of the teachers
made the change. It became very clear by the end of the
first quarter of school that the other software was not able
to meet our needs. We used a Friday half day in-service day
to bring the teachers together in a computer lab to move
everyone to the SDS Grade book. With great assistance from
our teachers who were already using SDS Grade book, we did a
step by step set-up, had them use the rest of the time to
move their assignments and grades from the other software,
and by Monday morning everyone was on the web with their
grades in SDS Grade book. During that year, our teachers
made suggestions for things that they would like to see
added or changed in SDS Grade book. When they returned this
August they were elated to find that many of their
suggestions were incorporated in the most recent version!
The program is user friendly, is web-based so teachers can
work from home, and the Parent Connect feature has been a
terrific addition to our efforts to keep parents
well-informed of their child’s progress.
Val Goliber
District Information Coordinator
Lisle School District 202