By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor
The Benicia Unified School District is considering a software system overhaul, and the Board of Trustees will hear a report on a proposed new system Thursday.
“Due to rising costs and continued lack of system support and development, the school districts and the county office of education in Solano County conducted a formal Request for Proposal for a new Financial/Human Resources system,” wrote Chief Business Officer Tim Rahill in a report to the board.
In their summary, the Solano County Education Technology Consortium outlined the process for selecting the new software system.
The SCETC was formed in 2002 to unify the five county school districts with the Office of Education (SCOE) on a common software system for maintenance of financial, personnel, purchasing, inventory and fixed asset reporting, with a shared cost among the member districts.
That year the SCETC selected the California Educational Computing Consortium (CECC) to replace Solano Online in Benicia, Dixon, SCOE and Vacaville; Quintessential School Solutions in Travis; and Escape Technologies in Vallejo.
Currently the districts pay $60,000 per year for debt service on conversion costs, plus a per-ADA (average daily attendance) cost. The per-ADA cost of CECC has risen from $5.81 per ADA in 2003-04 to $9.60 per ADA in 2012-13.
As other districts and counties leave the CECC system, that cost will continue to go up for remaining members, Rahill wrote.
Now, he wrote, the SCETC is investigating alternatives to CECC because of, among other reasons, excessive downtime due to equipment failure, increasing cost, and problematic implementation of updated modules.
After sending out the Request for Proposal, the SCETC chose Escape and Quintessential School Solutions for two-day software demonstrations in the Vacaville district. Escape was unanimously selected as the superior product, Rahill wrote.
Escape offers a program that is more integrated, user friendly, comprehensive, and less cumbersome than CECC, he wrote.
In addition, “The annual cost of Escape will be less than the cost of the current system,” he wrote.
While BUSD had been paying $95,000 per year for the current system — with a slightly lower cost in the 2012-13 year, $79,000, because of a lower debt service payment — Rahill wrote that “by selecting Escape as the new Financial/Human Resources system, BUSD will save money, provide an integrated, user-friendly and comprehensive program, and be part of a Solano County school district consortium, working together on the same system.”
If You Go
The BUSD board will meet at 5:30 p.m. for closed session, then at 7 p.m. for open session in the board room at the district office, 350 East K St.
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Working for the system, I am glad they are doing this. The current system is literally duplicated paper and data entry. It requires a last minute run to the district office, as well. It is right out of the dark ages. Another thing they need is an improved data network and an equal level of technology in each school.There are still portables in Robert Semple that do not have working internet connections because of distance or a short. If you compare one elementary school to another, those in more affluent areas have vastly better technologies than those in poorer areas This need to be remedied.
Changing software vendors will not improve a data network and equalize technology at the school site.