SchoolBrains Erfahrungen

Serves the whole district

Kommentare: If you need help, ask. They will help. Any new software can be challenging to use at first. That's probably where neg reviews start. We've been with them for more than three years and have not had issues that weren't quickly resolved. I went from a district with 900 students to one with more than 10,000 students and both use Schoolbrains. They provide new technology upgrades free of charge, too. Initial presentation was transparent and honest; what was promised, was delivered. I'm also a parent of a student in my district and can speak positively from that perspective as well. Please call if you have questions.

Vorteile:

We vetted this product for almost two years and found that the districts were happiest with SchoolBrains. Their support is the best in the business. Twenty years as teacher, dept head and principal and I'm not sure where negative feedback originates. We had surveys for admin staff, teachers, parents, and administrators and all believe support and ease of use has been great. Implementation was a lot smoother than previous. Very communicative and helpful during the transition process. Total cost of ownership is much lower when you figure how much our other service was charging us for support and reports. SchoolBrains has custom reports, solid state reporting that saved us a lot of time. Functionality, service, price...all A+.

Nachteile:

My business manager wishes they would offer a financial/ budget/ payroll module. Although it has a bus route piece, our transportation head hoped for a geo mapping module, too.

My expirience of use SchoolBrains

Kommentare: SchoolBrains offers a centralized platform for managing student information, including demographics, attendance, grades, and more. Users appreciate the ability to input, track, and access student data in a streamlined manner. This efficient data management helps schools maintain accurate records and provides insights into student performance.Tool provides portals for parents and students, allowing them to access important information such as grades, attendance, assignments, and announcements. I appreciate the convenience of real-time access to academic progress, which enhances communication and engagement between parents, students, and school staff.SchoolBrains offers features for scheduling classes, managing course catalogs, and creating academic calendars. I can efficiently allocate resources, assign teachers, and create schedules that meet the needs of students and staff. The system's ability to handle scheduling complexities, such as conflicts and student preferences, can save time and reduce administrative burden.SchoolBrains has also areas that I have identified as areas for improvement. These may include the user interface, learning curve, performance, customization limitations, and documentation/support resources.

Vorteile:

Student data management: SchoolBrains offers robust student data management capabilities, allowing schools to efficiently organize and track student information. I can easily input and access student data, including demographics, attendance records, grades, and more. This centralized system helps streamline administrative tasks and provides a comprehensive overview of student progress.Parent and student portals: SchoolBrains includes portals that facilitate communication and engagement between parents, students, and school staff. These portals provide access to real-time information such as attendance, grades, assignments, and announcements. Parents and students can stay informed about academic progress, upcoming events, and school news.Scheduling and calendar management: SchoolBrains provides tools for scheduling classes, managing course catalogs, and creating academic calendars. I can efficiently allocate resources, assign teachers, and create schedules that meet the needs of students and staff. The system also supports automated scheduling and conflict resolution, saving time and reducing errors.Reporting and analytics: SchoolBrains offers reporting and analytics features that enable schools to generate detailed reports on various aspects of student performance, attendance, and other relevant metrics. These reports help me gain insights into trends, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions.

Nachteile:

User interface and navigation: I have mentioned that the user interface of SchoolBrains can be complex and not as intuitive as they would prefer. Navigating through the system or finding specific features may require some time and effort, especially for new users or those less familiar with technology.Learning curve and training: SchoolBrains offers a wide range of features and functionality, which can result in a steep learning curve for users. I noticed that training and support resources may not be sufficient, making it challenging to fully utilize the system's capabilities. Adequate training and ongoing support can help users maximize the benefits of SchoolBrains.Performance and responsiveness: I have issues related to the performance and responsiveness of SchoolBrains, especially during peak usage times. Slow loading times or delays in accessing data can affect productivity.

It's a "No" from me

Vorteile:

The ability to have so much information at my digital fingertips is very helpful. Everything from students' IEPs to parent emails to past report cards along with addresses is all in one place.

Nachteile:

SchoolBrains is NOT user-friendly. There are so many things that SchoolBrains should be able to do easily but that is not the case. I constantly have things showing up double on report cards with no easy solution to fix. But my absolut least favorite feature in SchoolBrains is the fact that on the daily attendance there is a mark next to students who are on 504, IEPs, or ELL students. Given privacy issues, this makes it so students can not see or complete the attendance themselves.

We Recommend SchoolBrains

Kommentare: The three presentations were excellent. They covered everything we needed and we were well prepared with questions and he showed how the system functions, not just the benefits. If you've never been through a data systems change, you'll be surprised how much there is to it. My staff and I changed four years ago and we knew basically what to expect. It went smoother than we thought with SchoolBrains and the implementation team was accommodating and helpful. They also had an option to do more of the heavy lifting on their end. If you do not know what you're doing, spend the extra money it will be worth it. Fortunately, we have a capable staff and they had no issues. After training teachers embraced the ease of use and that intuitive behavior was critical for the union.

Vorteile:

A system as presented. Fast access to the data we need. Easy report creation. Meets state reporting requisites that other systems have a hard time providing. Teachers and administrators said it was intuitive. Implementation was easier than previous. Critical support was responsive. Access to vice president with one call.

Nachteile:

Support was decent but not great. Noncritical support by way of general questions or functionality was not good and at times we needed to follow up more than twice to receive answers. They manage full control of their data. It would be easier for districts, certainly ours, if we were able to create or modify certain Nontraditional or customized reports instead of calling support. Needs better integration options to third party systems.

School Brains

Vorteile:

As a teacher i love that i can easily manage my grades and assignments. The ability to communicate as well with my parents is a wonderful value-added. I also appreciate the cloud-based nature, knowing that my information is safe from a computer crash.

Nachteile:

Compared to other products i've used (including learning management systems), the gradebook took a bit too long to set up with assignments and grades. In this respect, the product falls short of the spreadsheet i was using before.

Schoolbrains - Adequate but should be better.

Kommentare: Schoolbrains works fairly well for daily use, but the implementation process and data reporting aspects need improvement. Specifically, during implementation, most timelines and deadlines were not met or required constant prompting from the customer to complete tasks correctly and on time.

Vorteile:

Schoolbrains works well for the daily SIS functions performed by schools. Navigation is easy. Accessibility is very good. Personnel security roles can be both globally and micro-managed depending on the need.

Nachteile:

Customization is required far too often, even for what might be considered routine data management. Although we were told it can: Customization cannot be done by school personnel. Importing data to update student or staff information cannot be done by school personnel. Reporting out and exporting data that resides on more than one data table is impossible without Schoolbrains staff customizing a report. For example, making a list of students' names and test scores with their current teacher's name on it for more than one classroom at a time cannot be done by the user. The special education module has many functionality short-comings typically available on special education software packages. Response to Intervention recording ability does not exist.

Not user friendly!

Kommentare: Worst grading program I've used.

Vorteile:

Nothing that makes this software better than others. A few good features. Not sure what else to put here.

Nachteile:

Very cumbersome! Takes way too long to input assignments and grades. To do term grades and comments you have to jump all over the place. To put in comments you have to click on each student; you can't use the tab key or enter key. Very slow!

School Brains

Kommentare: my experiance was good not that bad.

Vorteile:

its a good place to work with , so fast and easy, he make you calcule your things so smarty, and he give you solutions to manage and analyze.

Nachteile:

i think he need more work in development.

Teacher with 1 3/4 years of tortured use

Kommentare: This software was created by a software producer who saw a vulnerability in the asinine public school policy (SIF) imposed on public schools by the state of Massachusetts. Actual classroom teachers could not have been consulted in the development process. In my district, we used iPass prior to this software. While iPass also had limitations for teachers, the teachers in my school are begging for it's return. SchoolNOBrains has actually set my school back by over a decade as far as our student information system goes.

Vorteile:

There is literally nothing that I can find to say positive about this product. If not for the predatory contracts that clueless school district purchasing agents signed with this company this company would be out of business.

Nachteile:

Where to begin? The user interface of this software would earn a beginning programmer a failing grade in an introductory programming class.

User friendly software

Vorteile:

I was impressed with the features of this software and its user friendliness even though we didn't use it for long. It's reports and management of students is very amazing.

Nachteile:

Even though there's nothing bad about this software but the pricing was too high for me and I think that aspect should be considered for even small schools to purchase.

Saved District Money-Robust and Intuitive-Responsive Support

Kommentare: schoolBrains saves my district money, saves my teachers and staff time and completely unifies all of our data so we have one place to quickly and easily see all critical student information. Very responsive support team. As a thirty-year educator, my teachers union, superintendent and schoolboard highly endorse schoolBrains.

Vorteile:

Our entire management team bought in to using the system after review of four well-know larger national brands. SchoolBrains saved us money up front and continues to be a smart long-term investment for our district. Teachers learned it quickly, the software is robust and the benefits are enormous... it is totally configurable and completely unifies all of our district data so all student information can be viewed quickly. When we need help, the service has been the best I've ever exeperinced from a vendor in thirty years in education.

Nachteile:

I wish more people knew about schoolBrains. It was at first difficult to get all parties together to agree to have them present but once it happened, we became instant fans.

Great tool to keep all grades in one place

Vorteile:

Provides the ability to organize assignments and grades easily. Everything is one spot and the dashboard is user friendly. You can utilize an unlimited number of grades/assignments, and the set up goes fairly quickly.

Nachteile:

As a new user, it takes a bit to get used to the dashboard and the flow of the set up process. Once you get the hang of it, it goes quickly. I like the simplicity of the dashboard, and it integrates with other software we use.

Great Support and Easy to configure

Kommentare: We're a large district and many of our schools operate very differently. Schoolbrains was able to configure the system to work meeting the goals of each school in our district. Support has been great - they are good listeners and problem solvers. Software is constantly being improved based on our feedback.

Vorteile:

Very configurable with many reporting options

Awful! I'm a teacher and they left our district out to dry. No help. Hundreds of problems. Don't buy

Kommentare: Terrible! Tons of problems. No help. If I could have submitted this with NO stars, I would have.