Montour School District Selects Skyward Student Management Suite

STEVENS POINT, Wis. (Sept. 8, 2016) – Skyward, a K-12 school administrative software provider, is excited to announce its partnership with Montour School District in Pennsylvania. Located just outside Pittsburgh, the district adopted Skyward’s Student Management Suite in March and is now prepared to rollout the SIS solution for the 2016-2017 school year. 

Darryl Yonkers, director of technology at Montour School District, described the issues administrators faced with the district’s previous SIS vendor. “The training model implemented by the prior vendor was not very in-depth, and it didn’t really leave staff in a good place right from the get-go,” Yonkers said. “Our staff struggled to complete tasks that were common things they needed to do, and the support was just terrible.” 

He explained how district staff would enter support tickets with the vendor and wait at least a month before hearing back from a service representative. Sometimes, once a response was received, staff members were instructed to resubmit their support ticket and were told it was not a high priority. “It was definitely challenging, to say the least,” Yonkers added. 

Montour School District began to explore new SIS options by conducting a statewide SIS survey and gathering feedback on what other districts in the state were using. “Skyward was a product that came up from several other districts,” Yonkers said. “They were really, really pleased with it, so we chose to bring Skyward in and evaluate.” 

The easy-to-use interface and built-in features of Skyward’s Student Management Suite factored into administrators’ decision to select the new SIS. “One big requirement of an SIS is the ability to put information in and get it out,” Yonkers explained. “With Skyward, the data mining was very easy to do, and the way we can distribute and import data is one of the reasons why we like it.” 

Yonkers also attested to cost savings and the potential for enhanced parent engagement resulting from the Student Management Suite. “There’s definitely a cost savings involved – just switching vendors – Skyward was a lot more reasonably priced,” Yonkers said. “With the mobile app and Family Access, we are looking to increase engagement with parents and streamline some of our processes.” 

For the first time, district parents will be able to access their contact information, maintain passwords, and register students online within Skyward’s parent portal and mobile app. “I think that’s going to make it a lot easier on some folks internally and for our district’s families,” Yonkers said. 

Administrators at Montour School District are ready for a fresh start with a new SIS this school year. “The cooperation and the ability for us to reach out and have good resources right at our fingertips has been a real breath of fresh air for us,” Yonkers said. “It’s really turned our heads and made us realize that the system we had previously wasn’t really of par.” 

For more information on Skyward’s Student Management Suite, visit skyward.com/K-12/Student-Management-Suite.