PowerSchool Allows Districts in Arizona to Successfully Report With AzEDS Ed-Fi

PowerSchool Group LLC (“PowerSchool”) has helped 25 Arizona School Districts report real-time data via the state’s new AzEDS (Arizona Education Data Standards) system, nearly a full year ahead of the state’s July 2016 goal.

Twenty of these districts began reporting during a two-day event held September 24 and 25, 2015, hosted by Vail School District and the PowerSchool AzEDS support team in Vail, Arizona. Vail School District is the state’s first to begin using AzEDS and has been leading the way for other districts to report through AzEDS.

By investing in its Ed-Fi capability, PowerSchool has become the only student information system (SIS) in the U.S. working with all five states (Arizona, Tennessee, Nebraska, Wisconsin, and Michigan) currently implementing Ed-Fi for state reporting. PowerSchool is also the only vendor going into production with multiple districts in Arizona for the 2015-16 school year — a year ahead of schedule – and the only SIS to have implemented both batch and real-time data transfer.

“Here in Vail we are so fortunate to have stayed the course with PowerSchool. Being the first district in Arizona to attain AzEDS compliance is a direct result of the first-class support and dedication of PowerSchool’s team,” says Matt Federoff, Vail School District CIO.

PowerSchool has strong and proactive support for the Arizona AzEDS model. On September 10, 2015, Arizona Department of Education (ADE) chief information officer Mark Masterson announced that 10 districts were online on AzEDS. Of these, five districts were using PowerSchool, compiling 50% of online districts. That percentage has now grown to 71% of districts certified.

The PowerSchool AzEDS team, the Vail School District technology department, and the ADE AzEDS team have been working together on a solution enabling districts to report real time information to the state. The tight integration with AzEDS technology offered by PowerSchool minimizes the total cost the districts incur while gathering and submitting this data.

“We were privileged to help our partner districts transition to the new AzEDS data reporting and we are grateful for the assistance of PowerSchool Support staff. Vail has been submitting via AzEDS since the start of the school year with great success, and we look forward to continue assisting our partner districts to do likewise,” says Norm Purdy, Vail School District outreach manager.