ACADEMY STAFF REPORT RECCOMENDATIONS
title
Consider approving WA Resolution 23-22 approving the second year of a two-year contract with Dickson Educational Services for PEIMS support; and take appropriate action (Darcy McFarlane, Accountability Director)
body
STAFF: Darcy McFarlane, Accountability Director
BACKGROUND:
In September 2022 Westlake Academy contracted with Dickson Educational Services to provide PEIMS Plus Partner support services during the implementation and first two years of using PowerSchool Student Information System (SIS). As we were implementing a new SIS system this service was needed to ensure we were able to meet TEA reporting requirements.
DISCUSSION:
The first year we used Dickson Educational Services (Dickson ES) to prepare and submit all of our state reporting. In addition to running and submitting our PEIMS and TSDS Core reports to TEA, Dickson ES also provided technical knowledge and support to help us transition during the process of moving and reporting from Ascender to PowerSchool. The second year of the contract with Dickson will include the same services and will be a training year where we will have access to enhanced personal training for a full transition to PowerSchool reporting.
In year one of the contract it was necessary for Westlake Academy to report PEIMS out of both PowerSchool and our old SIS, Ascender. Dickson Educational Services is one of only a few, if not the only company who offers support for both of these platforms and could assist us in combining our student and staff information from the two systems to make it possible to submit our three largest state reports last year. TEA requires 17 plus reports per year on our whole school population, at least four SPED reports and this year we are required to submit a Civil Rights Data Collection for the Department of Education; all of this information will come from PowerSchool. While we now have a PowerSchool Administrator we are still building and implementing PowerSchool and learning how our full system, including the business side, works with the TEA reporting. Not meeting these 21 plus deadlines and/or submitting dirty data can have a negative impact on both funding and ratings so it is imperative that we can verify that our data is correct, that our data pulls correctly out of PowerSchool and that it uploads to TEAs system.
FISCAL IMPACT:
This is the second year of a two-year contract at $43,620 per year.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends approving the resolution, as presented.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES ACTION/OPTIONS:
1) Motion to approve
2) Motion to amend with the following stipulations (please state stipulations in motion)
3) Motion to table
4) Motion to deny