01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, October 5, 2004

BY BARBARA POLICHETTI
Journal Staff Writer

CRANSTON -- When school officials found out this summer that the state Department of Education was asking school districts to adopt a standardized computer system for keeping student records, the inquiry could not have come at a better, or worse, time.

It was good timing, officials said last week, because the 10-year-old software Cranston uses to track students' records -- from their daily attendance to their quarterly grades -- is out-of-date and needs to be replaced.

Unfortunately, they said, the district is strapped for cash and doesn't have the resources to invest the hours of manpower that would be required to switch to the new system.

In the end, however, it turned out to be all good news, because administrators applied for and received full state funding to make the switch -- the district will get $226,000 from the state Department of Education.

In announcing the grant last week, Supt. Catherine Ciarlo said that the state-wide system would not only put the district on the forefront of technology, but would eventually make life easier for administrators, teachers and parents.

James Dylan, director of Student Information Services for Cranston schools, and Donna Marie Frappier, supervisor of technology services, said that with the new system data will be accessible via the Internet. And since data will be entered "live" through the Internet, the information will always be up-to-date, they said.

The state expects the system to be running by next year, Ciarlo said, and the advantages will be many. For instance, she said, parents who have students transferring to Cranston from a district that also uses the system will not have to bring their children's records since the information will be available online.

And some day, she said, parents will be able to log onto the Internet and check information on their children, such as attendance and discipline records.

She noted that all current privacy laws will continue to apply and that the district will only share records that it is authorized to with other state agencies and that parents will only have access to their own children's information.

Dylan said that about 16 districts will be online with the standardized state system, but that it may be made mandatory. Cranston is fortunate, he said, to have received the money for the entire cost of conversion -- which he described as a massive undertaking involving the transfer of reams of data.

"Remember," he said, "we have more than 11,000 students in this district and we have to keep records on them for every year they are with us."

Although that information is tracked by computer now, it is an internal system and cannot be accessed through the Internet, he said. So it can be time consuming to file certain mandatory reports of student data with the Department of Education, the Health Department and other state agencies, Dylan said.

"We were interested in the state's proposal right from the start," Ciarlo said. "But given our financial situation, would couldn't afford to take something of this magnitude.

"We are so pleased to get full funding in the amount of $226,000 because otherwise we would not have been able to participate."

Asst. Supt. M. Richard Scherza credited the administrators who applied for the grant.

"We were at the point where we were going to have to upgrade our current record-keeping system and that would have required spending taxpayer dollars," he said. "But we were awarded this grant and were able to save money for the residents of this city."