References

Small Business Support Services (SBSS) of Chicago, Illinois, is a provider of information technology solutions for schools and colleges. The company is a developer of STARS, the Student Tracking and Reporting System, installed in many elementary and some of the largest high schools in Chicago.

SBSS planned development of a new school system, called InfoLine Plus, and wanted to create an affordable and easy-to-use solution that would be able to work in the highly distributed environment of the Internet and combine administrative functions of the previous school applications with a number of new enhanced teacher-to-parent communication features. "Many parents would like to be informed and closely involved and participating in their children's development. But the work keeps them extremely busy and there is no possibility to meet teachers as often as necessary. We wanted to give parents access to their child's information from the comfort of their home," said Sam Gantman, SBSS Consultant.

After reviewing qualification and experience of a number of potential vendors, Web Space Station^® was selected to develop the project.

Microsoft's .NET technology was selected for the project. This brand new technology greatly reduces development time, improves reliably and provides many other important advantages.

A secure Internet site with interfaces for teachers and parents was created. Teachers are allowed to record students' results, absences, tardiness, and discipline violations and to generate different reports. Parents can check current progress of their children, track attendance, discipline, grades, and homework. Parents and teachers can securely communicate through the system. The system is capable to serve many different schools in many districts. A special voice module was implemented to daily call parents and dictate messages entered by teachers during a day.

The InfoLine Plus system improved teacher-to-parent communication and parental involvement into education process, enhanced student performance, and provided assistance in addressing undesirable behavior. Teachers additionally got a powerful tool that automates many formal everyday teachers' activities. The Internet access and automatic email and telephone communication increased the effectiveness of parent-teacher conferences and decreased the need for other meetings that caused parents to miss their work hours.

"I cannot express the satisfaction by service of Web Space Station^® strongly enough," said Sam Gantman. "Web Space Station^® understood our concept from the beginning and ran with the project to the completion. They stayed right on the target with the dates promised and were always receptive to feedback and changes. To date the system runs smoothly and we will continue to employ them as our technical support team."