Serves the whole district

If you need help, ask. They will help. Any new software can be challenging to use at first. That's probably where neg reviews start. We've been with them for more than three years and have not had issues that weren't quickly resolved. I went from a district with 900 students to one with more than 10,000 students and both use Schoolbrains. They provide new technology upgrades free of charge, too. Initial presentation was transparent and honest; what was promised, was delivered. I'm also a parent of a student in my district and can speak positively from that perspective as well. Please call if you have questions.

Pros

We vetted this product for almost two years and found that the districts were happiest with SchoolBrains. Their support is the best in the business. Twenty years as teacher, dept head and principal and I'm not sure where negative feedback originates. We had surveys for admin staff, teachers, parents, and administrators and all believe support and ease of use has been great. Implementation was a lot smoother than previous. Very communicative and helpful during the transition process. Total cost of ownership is much lower when you figure how much our other service was charging us for support and reports. SchoolBrains has custom reports, solid state reporting that saved us a lot of time. Functionality, service, price...all A+.

Cons

My business manager wishes they would offer a financial/ budget/ payroll module. Although it has a bus route piece, our transportation head hoped for a geo mapping module, too.

We Recommend SchoolBrains

The three presentations were excellent. They covered everything we needed and we were well prepared with questions and he showed how the system functions, not just the benefits. If you've never been through a data systems change, you'll be surprised how much there is to it. My staff and I changed four years ago and we knew basically what to expect. It went smoother than we thought with SchoolBrains and the implementation team was accommodating and helpful. They also had an option to do more of the heavy lifting on their end. If you do not know what you're doing, spend the extra money it will be worth it. Fortunately, we have a capable staff and they had no issues. After training teachers embraced the ease of use and that intuitive behavior was critical for the union.

Pros

A system as presented. Fast access to the data we need. Easy report creation. Meets state reporting requisites that other systems have a hard time providing. Teachers and administrators said it was intuitive. Implementation was easier than previous. Critical support was responsive. Access to vice president with one call.

Cons

Support was decent but not great. Noncritical support by way of general questions or functionality was not good and at times we needed to follow up more than twice to receive answers. They manage full control of their data. It would be easier for districts, certainly ours, if we were able to create or modify certain Nontraditional or customized reports instead of calling support. Needs better integration options to third party systems.

Schoolbrains - Adequate but should be better.

Schoolbrains works fairly well for daily use, but the implementation process and data reporting aspects need improvement. Specifically, during implementation, most timelines and deadlines were not met or required constant prompting from the customer to complete tasks correctly and on time.

Pros

Schoolbrains works well for the daily SIS functions performed by schools. Navigation is easy. Accessibility is very good. Personnel security roles can be both globally and micro-managed depending on the need.

Cons

Customization is required far too often, even for what might be considered routine data management. Although we were told it can: Customization cannot be done by school personnel. Importing data to update student or staff information cannot be done by school personnel. Reporting out and exporting data that resides on more than one data table is impossible without Schoolbrains staff customizing a report. For example, making a list of students' names and test scores with their current teacher's name on it for more than one classroom at a time cannot be done by the user. The special education module has many functionality short-comings typically available on special education software packages. Response to Intervention recording ability does not exist.

Saved District Money-Robust and Intuitive-Responsive Support

schoolBrains saves my district money, saves my teachers and staff time and completely unifies all of our data so we have one place to quickly and easily see all critical student information. Very responsive support team. As a thirty-year educator, my teachers union, superintendent and schoolboard highly endorse schoolBrains.

Pros

Our entire management team bought in to using the system after review of four well-know larger national brands. SchoolBrains saved us money up front and continues to be a smart long-term investment for our district. Teachers learned it quickly, the software is robust and the benefits are enormous... it is totally configurable and completely unifies all of our district data so all student information can be viewed quickly. When we need help, the service has been the best I've ever exeperinced from a vendor in thirty years in education.

Cons

I wish more people knew about schoolBrains. It was at first difficult to get all parties together to agree to have them present but once it happened, we became instant fans.

User friendly software

Pros

I was impressed with the features of this software and its user friendliness even though we didn't use it for long. It's reports and management of students is very amazing.

Cons

Even though there's nothing bad about this software but the pricing was too high for me and I think that aspect should be considered for even small schools to purchase.

Not user friendly!

Worst grading program I've used.

Pros

Nothing that makes this software better than others. A few good features. Not sure what else to put here.

Cons

Very cumbersome! Takes way too long to input assignments and grades. To do term grades and comments you have to jump all over the place. To put in comments you have to click on each student; you can't use the tab key or enter key. Very slow!

School Brains

Pros

As a teacher i love that i can easily manage my grades and assignments. The ability to communicate as well with my parents is a wonderful value-added. I also appreciate the cloud-based nature, knowing that my information is safe from a computer crash.

Cons

Compared to other products i've used (including learning management systems), the gradebook took a bit too long to set up with assignments and grades. In this respect, the product falls short of the spreadsheet i was using before.

Great tool to keep all grades in one place

Pros

Provides the ability to organize assignments and grades easily. Everything is one spot and the dashboard is user friendly. You can utilize an unlimited number of grades/assignments, and the set up goes fairly quickly.

Cons

As a new user, it takes a bit to get used to the dashboard and the flow of the set up process. Once you get the hang of it, it goes quickly. I like the simplicity of the dashboard, and it integrates with other software we use.

Teacher with 1 3/4 years of tortured use

This software was created by a software producer who saw a vulnerability in the asinine public school policy (SIF) imposed on public schools by the state of Massachusetts. Actual classroom teachers could not have been consulted in the development process. In my district, we used iPass prior to this software. While iPass also had limitations for teachers, the teachers in my school are begging for it's return. SchoolNOBrains has actually set my school back by over a decade as far as our student information system goes.

Pros

There is literally nothing that I can find to say positive about this product. If not for the predatory contracts that clueless school district purchasing agents signed with this company this company would be out of business.

Cons

Where to begin? The user interface of this software would earn a beginning programmer a failing grade in an introductory programming class.

Great Support and Easy to configure

We're a large district and many of our schools operate very differently. Schoolbrains was able to configure the system to work meeting the goals of each school in our district. Support has been great - they are good listeners and problem solvers. Software is constantly being improved based on our feedback.

Pros

Very configurable with many reporting options

Awful! I'm a teacher and they left our district out to dry. No help. Hundreds of problems. Don't buy

Terrible! Tons of problems. No help. If I could have submitted this with NO stars, I would have.