Using Computers for School Administration

• Storing student demographic information
• Scheduling students
• Storing school-wide attendance records and generating daily attendance reports
• Storing student achievement records and generating reports for parents
• Generating reports for the State Department of Education
  

Major Benefits of Administrative Networks

• Many people can simultaneously view and edit student records
• Data entry can be more efficient
• Centralized storage of student information
• Backing-up copies of all critical information files is centralized
• Access to productivity software is shared
• Access to expensive peripheral equipment is shared
  

Major Concerns of Using Administrative Networks

• The security of the system
• Input errors are much more difficult to prevent
• Considerable cost
• In-service training for network users
  

Approaches to Implementing an Administrative Network

Install an "administration only" network

• limited to a relatively small number of people
• security of the information on the network
• user of the network by new users can be phased in

Install a School-Wide network

• both administrative and instructional programs will coexist
• allow student performance results to be integrated into the administrative system for record keeping and reporting
• attendance can be viewed and updated from anywhere in the school
• allow electronic communication to everyone in the school
• provide an excellent infrastructure for individualized instruction
• entail a significant leap in sophistication and complexity, and require a great deal of planning
  

One of the most common mistakes school administrators make is to spend considerable amounts of money on the hardware and software for computerized administration packages, but not to budget for staff training. Training is the key component in the successful implementation of computers in school offices.