MMS Generations is the answer for centralized district-wide information and communication for the Brewer School District

Background:

The Brewer School District in Brewer, Maine serves 1,821 students between five schools which include a high school, middle school, and three elementary schools. Each summer in order to move students from one grade and school to another the administrative staff would download information from the student information system at one school, put it on a disk, and drive to the next school. Once there, they would import all the information from the disk into the student information system at that school. Then, download the information that needs to be moved to the next school, put it on a disk, and drive to the next school… and so on until all student data was moved to the appropriate school for next school year. This was just one of many issues with their de-centralized system. The school district could not run reports for the entire district without running them separately at each location and manually putting the pieces together. In addition, every time the student information system needed to be upgraded with a new release the IT staff needed to physically install the update at all of the schools and every computer that accessed it! This process would consume weeks of staff time during the year.

Challenge:

Centralize school administration data across all schools within the district while improving operations and productivity. Enable the student information system to be available across the multiple computing platforms in use throughout the district, including Windows, Macintosh and Linux machines.

Solution:

MMS Generations, by Computer Resources, throughout the Brewer School District, along with Microsoft’s Terminal Services with its Remote Desktop technology. Implementing MMS Generations has brought considerable benefits to the Brewer School District. Mark Jenkins, Technology Technician, boasts that his job has become much easier due to a centralized database throughout the school district. In addition, he confirms that the job of the administrative staff has also become easier thanks to the power of the new MMS software. Mark states, “it’s very robust, especially with the addition of the health module, discipline module, and grade book for all the high school teachers. We even use the system for information such as student accounts including their computer user names and passwords.”

The Brewer School District has also set up MMS Generations to be accessed remotely via Microsoft’s Terminal Services application. Mark found the Terminal Services licenses to be very inexpensive and the set up was painless. In less than half a day the Terminal Services environment was set up and users could begin remote sessions. Teachers and staff enjoy the option of connecting into the school system at night and on weekends if they choose. As he stated, “it beats staying at the office late at night when work needs to be finished, it’s nice to have the option to work from home. And the connections are fast, performance is great, it’s just like being in the office.”

Since the users at the Brewer School District can’t live without being in the system for even a short time, Mark typically does any updates or system maintenance at home via the Terminal Services remote connection. “I can take my time with the upgrade without hearing the phones ringing off the hook with folks asking when they can get back into the MMS system. Everyone relies on it so heavily for everything.” Mark continued, “Since the database and the MMS application itself is centralized, I only have to update one machine versus all of the separate machines so it’s usually a quick process… no headaches for me.”

Another benefit of the centralized system is that the district is able to run district-wide reports, accessing centralized data for all schools. This is important for overall analysis and trends. Also, the special education teachers and guidance counselors otherwise could not access the data for all of the schools and be able to work with all of their students from one place.

MMS Generations is essential to Brewer Schools in managing their data. Mark said, “It would be a nightmare if we didn’t have MMS. Everyone would enter and track data in their own way and reporting wouldn’t work. We are able to do all sorts of reporting such as discipline reporting, assessments to the state, ratios of sending districts and analysis of all kinds, such as GPA statistics.”

Mark concluded, “All in all, MMS Generations was a major leap ahead for us. Its reliability allows us to focus on other technology initiatives.”

“Everyone at the Brewer School District feels like Computer Resources is part of the Brewer family,” said Mark. “I’ve referred MMS to other local schools and I always say go ahead and shop around all you want but certainly look at Computer Resources. The product is great, and the support team always takes the extra time to help us regardless of the issue we are trying to solve.”

About MMS for Schools:

MMS is the complete K-12 student information management solution for single school sites or district-wide implementation. Clients include public schools, private and parochial schools, charter and independent schools. All stake holders enjoy flexible, accurate data management and in-depth, real-time reporting. MMS software is easy-to-use and provides better data to help you quickly identify trends or problems. The centralized installation and database makes MMS easy to maintain.

About Computer Resources, LLC:

Since 1978 Computer Resources has been servicing the educational community with an outstanding reputation for providing powerful and reliable school management software. The company is made up of a team of dedicated professionals, including former educators, who specialize in meeting your school's needs and giving unparalleled personal service.
Computer Resources, LLC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SofterWare Inc.

Copyright 2009.

Brewer School District
Brewer, ME

Contact: Mark Jenkins,
Technology Technician
207-989-4140

High school – 908 students
Middle school – 296 students
Elementary schools (3) – 617 students
Total of 1,821 students

Client since:

  • High School – 1983 – 26 years
  • Middle School – 1989 – 20 years
  • Elem. & Dist. Office – 1993-2004 – 5 to 16 years

MMS solutions:

  • Biographical
  • Attendance with state reporting
  • Discipline
  • Scheduling
  • Grade reporting with graduation requirements
  • Fee Tracking
  • Health
  • Maine MEDMS
  • Precision Report Writer
  • Parental Internet Access
  • Mail merge
  • Classroll.com

 

 

 

“MMS is very robust, especially with the addition of the health module, discipline module, and grade book for all the high school teachers. We even use the system for information such as student accounts including their computer user names and passwords.”

 

 

 

 

“All in all, MMS Generations was a major leap ahead for us. Its reliability allows us to focus on other technology initiatives.”