District at a Glance
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The East Stroudsburg Area School District is located in eastern Pennsylvania, just west of New York City. It is comprised of 10 schools on seven campuses that span 216 square miles.
From the early 90s until the 2007 economic downturn, East Stroudsburg experienced rapid expansion of its student population, which prompted the district to construct new facilities. Since 2007, however, the influx of students dropped off. Now, approximately 8,100 students attend the district’s schools every year, although East Stroudsburg experiences a high turnover rate of pupils. The district usually has about 1,200 new students per year.
Despite the district being close to New York City, the area where it is located is considered rural. East Stroudsburg spans two counties and six different municipalities. Seven out of 10 of the schools are under the state police’s jurisdiction, so the response times for routine calls can be 40-45 minutes.
The district has its own sworn and armed police force. The police department has seven officers.
The Key: Centralized Database Management
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At the East Stroudsburg Area School District, all of the student and employee data is integrated in a centralized database, which, according to Director of Administrative Services Eric Forsyth, is an important factor, if not the key factor in achieving district-wide systems integration. Smart data mapping is also critical.
“When a student is enrolled, within that business day, that student’s information is automatically transferred into every system that needs it,” says Forsyth. “I can go through what happens with a student from the moment they walk in to sign up for kindergarten, all the way until they graduate and our system automatically drops them out of our access protocols, lunch programs, library card system and everything else. For example, if guidance counselors need to meet with a student or they sign in late with the attendance secretary, we see who they are supposed to be dealing with.”
Parent information is also automatically put into the community outreach system, so if district staff need to reach the parents, they can do so via E-mail, cell phone or automated message.
Forsyth believes other districts or campuses that need to achieve robust systems integration must establish a master source of authority, and that student and employee data should flow from that source. In East Stroudsburg’s case, the Honeywell platform ties into this centralized database.
“You have to integrate it all, and it needs to be consistent,” he says. “To eliminate the chance of errors or orphaned accounts, everything from our E-mail to our card access systems is based on a direct export that occurs automatically.”
Forsyth recommends that other districts and campuses require their vendors – which all should have an import methodology – have imports and exports that are compatible with the district’s/campus’ format.
“That way, no one goes, ‘Oh, I didn’t update the card access system; he quit a month ago and he opened a door on campus last night.’”
