Press Release No School Should Be Left Behind | RenWeb School Administration Software

Kelly, a third grade teacher at Western Christian School in Hanford, California who took on the responsibility of coordinating grants for the school four years ago, has leveraged two sections of the Act – and a carefully nurtured relationship with her local public school district – to gain the funding needed to purchase the industry’s leading school management software program.

How RenWeb Qualifies for NCLB Grants

Title II, Parts A and D of The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that schools improve student academic achievement through the use of technology, promote initiatives that help integrate technology into curricula and instruction, and boost parent and family involvement in education and communication among students, parents and teachers.

A better description of RenWeb’s mission couldn’t be written – which is exactly what Kelly determined upon reviewing the Act. She recognized that a range of RenWeb features meet these criteria:

• ParentsWeb allows parents to track their children's progress up-to-the minute – viewing their grades, assignments, and activities –as well as to communicate with staff.
• Email Capabilities include the ability for teachers and staff to mail any family in the school without ever looking up an address, and to transmit progress reports directly from teacher grade books.
• Attendance features allow teachers to “call roll” on the system, making the information immediately available for office modifications or report printing.
• Grade Books can be created and kept directly in the system, empowering teachers to make automatic calculations; email parents messages or progress reports directly from the grade book; enter course objectives, lesson plans and homework assignments for immediate viewing by parents; and print report cards directly from the grade book.
• Student Performance Analysis enables a wide range of capabilities including the ability to review, analyze and make comparisons by teacher or department or based on factors such as gender, ethnicity, grade level or attendance; and to analyze effectiveness of preparations for standardized tests by matching test results to grades.
• Surveys can be administered online for students, staff and parents on subjects ranging from academics to athletics to parent communication.
• Security and Back Up features allow the administration to set staff and faculty data access; files are fully encrypted and are backed up daily, allowing for recovery of accidentally deleted data within minutes.

Getting It Done

Kelly, who had developed a relationship with the staff of the Hanford Elementary School District in campaigning for government funds for Western Christian School, turned to them again for help in obtaining NCLB funds for RenWeb.

She wrote up a proposal for using federal monies under Part D to buy the software and sent it to the district with a purchase order. A mere week later, the school received half of the money needed to purchase the software. Then, having discovered the relevant provisions in Part A, Kelly dispatched a second proposal – and had the rest of the money the school needed to obtain RenWeb within a few days.

Kelly credits her success to the rapport she built with the district office. "The more that I partner with my local education agencies and the more we talk and work together, the more willing they are to say- 'hey guess what, you are eligible for this...would you like to be included?" she explains. "Before that, they didn't offer us anything--you have to step up and ask for the money."

In the end, Kelly’s hard work and relationship-building paid off big for her school – by providing government-funded access to the first-class tools and features offered by RenWeb.

About RenWeb

RenWeb is enabling administrators, teachers, parents and students in more than 600 schools across North America to “switch on the power” as the leading provider of next-generation Internet-based school management software. RenWeb’s unmatched convenience and service includes complete installation of the software including conversion of data, all as part of one, low license fee, along with a client interface that provides easy access to more than 150 integrated features. Developed by a university dean, RenWeb is leading the migration of schools from client server-based to web-based systems, bringing administration, parents, students and the classroom together with anytime, anywhere access to a full range of services. Features include Admissions, Enrollment, Scheduling, Billing and Tuition Management, Lunchroom Management, Health Management, Attendance, Homework, Lesson Plans, Gradebook, Report Cards, Transcripts, Extensive Reporting Capabilities, Automated Emailing and ParentsWeb. For more information about RenWeb, visit www.renweb.com.

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