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Rapid City Area Schools (RCAS) Selects Skyward Over State-Sponsored Student Management System(PR Web Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Stevens Point, WI (PRWEB) August 16, 2011 Skyward, Inc., an industry leading K-12 school administration software provider, has announced that Rapid City Area Schools (RCAS) will continue to power its district with Skyward despite the option to move to a state-sponsored student management system at no cost. RCAS has relied on Skyward’s School Business Suite for 25 years and Skyward’s Student Management Suite for 10 years to manage virtually all of the district’s student and business operations. With 13,369 students and 1,683 employees, the RCAS district of South Dakota is comprised of 24 different sites, including elementary, middle and high schools. “I was a very active user of the state-sponsored student management system at my previous district, so I know firsthand the difference between the two products,” explains Dr. Timothy M. Mitchell, Superintendent of Schools. “Skyward provides us with a mature, comprehensive and multifaceted solution that truly serves as a one-stop shop for our district. Unlike the state-sponsored system that essentially manages only the student portion of a district’s needs, our Skyward system supports every aspect of our business.” Rick Bates, Director of Technology for RCAS, says Skyward’s integrated approach to student and business management drives high efficiency and productivity levels, particularly in comparison to other districts using the free state-sponsored system. “We operate with far fewer administrative employees than other districts. Most require five to six systems to accomplish what we do with just one. And each of those systems has at least one employee dedicated to its management; we have just three people supporting Skyward. So there is an obvious difference in efficiency and cost; one free system does not ensure a low total cost of ownership.” RCAS is using Skyward’s Cloud-based offering to ensure high availability while providing the district with almost immediate access to new functionality and enhancements to improve school operations and ensure compliance with new regulations. Because the two suites are integrated and run on a single database, RCAS can solve many data management tasks that would not be possible with the state-sponsored system. For example, RCAS uses Skyward to access data at a granular level, which provides timely, concrete information for informed decision-making. This degree of analysis would not be possible for a district running multiple, disparate systems. RCAS says Skyward offers a level of flexibility it has not found in other solutions. For example, individual schools within the same district have a degree of freedom to operate such as using arena scheduling or traditional scheduling, operating on semesters or trimesters, and even customizing school-specific report cards. “RCAS has relied on Skyward technology for more than two decades, and we are delighted that they continue to recognize the long-term value Skyward has to offer over competing solutions,” says Scott Glinski, President of Skyward. “We remain committed to collaborating with RCAS and the other districts within the Skyward family to ensure we deliver innovative solutions that meets their needs both today and in the future.” To learn more about the Skyward School Management System, visit http://www.skyward.com or call 800.236.7274. About Rapid City Area Schools With 13,369 students and 1,683 employees, the Rapid City Area Schools district of South Dakota is comprised of 24 different sites, including elementary, middle and high schools. http://www.rcas.org About Skyward Skyward is a leading provider of K-12 school administrative software that surpasses districts’ needs in state reporting, improves operational capabilities, and opens communication between schools and families. Today, Skyward’s School Management System™ is in more than 1,400 school districts worldwide ranging from districts with as few as 50 students to districts with more than 70,000 students. Founded in 1980, Skyward serves school districts with its integrated student, finance, and human resources suite of products and is proudly made and supported in the U.S.A. http://www.skyward.com ### Skyward, Inc. Raymond Ackerlund info(at)skyward(dot)com 800-236-7274 Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/8/prweb8723598.htm (c) 2011 PRWEB.COM Newswire |