Wisconsin District Upgrades SIS with Trusted Hometown Provider

Case Studies > Wisconsin District Upgrades SIS with Trusted Hometown Provider

Pacelli Catholic Schools implements Skyward Qmlativ to further modernize their student data and security.

Despite their size, small districts’ needs from their SIS are no different than their larger counterparts. Lower enrollment levels and employee counts don’t discredit the need for a reliable, accurate, and modernized system.

For Pacelli Catholic Schools, the need to update their SIS led them no further than their trusted software provider of over 20 years, who happens to be headquartered in the same central Wisconsin town. Between continuous updates to their SIS and thriving partnership that goes beyond the software, Pacelli proves that small districts can do big things.

We sat down with three of Pacelli’s staff — Jeff Bushman, director of technology, Duncan Marten, student administrative services assistant, and Kristin Plaski, education technology specialist — who were pivotal in Pacelli’s successful migration to Skyward’s Qmlativ Education Management system for their SIS.

"Easier navigations and report building were big improvements that I saw and excited me!"

Grounded in history

Pacelli and Skyward’s relationship goes back to the turn of the century. They began using Skyward with Point and Click (PAC) in 2005. A few years later, the district migrated to SMS 2.0, and finally migrated to Qmlativ for their SIS in 2023. In case you lost count, this means that the SMS 2.0 to Qmlativ migration was Pacelli’s second major migration with Skyward.

Skyward and Pacelli’s tried and true history, and the familiarity that comes with sharing the same town, has led to extended collaborations.

“By being in each other’s backyards, we have had many opportunities to call each other up for partnerships and sponsorships,” said Bushman. “For example, Skyward has helped us with kids’ coding events in the past, and helped us get our computer science program up and running.”

Many Skyward employees have also attended Pacelli in their formative years and have kids that attend now, adding another level to the connection between the organizations. Most notably, Jim King (Skyward founder, former CEO, and former chairman of the board) and the late Cliff King (former Skyward president and CEO) were awarded with the district’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2022.

This mutual trust and ongoing relationship has served as the backbone for continuous improvements in Pacelli’s SIS software.

"If I can't figure it out myself, Skyward is always quick to respond on my support tickets with the answer."

Time for change

Student information systems are designed to hold a lot of information, so keeping them up to date is essential.

Between Bushman, Marten, and Plaski, the three of them use almost every component of their SIS: Bushman also teaches a class at the high school, Marten plays a hand in scheduling, and Plaski has background in the financial side.

“Though our roles vary, we all agreed that our SIS needed a revamp after being on SMS 2.0 for awhile,” said Marten.

When looking for an upgrade, Pacelli looked no further than Skyward’s latest solution: Qmlativ.

“We loved the modern look, especially with the tiles that Qmlativ offers,” said Plaski.

“Easier navigations and report building were big improvements that I saw and excited me,” said Marten. “I liked the idea of being able to open up a module and see configuration reports that I regularly need to find quicker than I could with SMS 2.0.”

After deciding on Qmlativ, Pacelli was ready to quickly make the migration.
 

Preparing for success

Pacelli’s migration was fast — it only took about six months. The main contributor was that the district opted for a shorter training plan, completing it in approximately four months. Pacelli’s success is attributed to following the outlined training plan, garnering buy-in from their staff, and maintaining a positive attitude towards the change.

“We knew that change was inevitable, so we thought ‘why wait?’,” said Bushman.

With this quick timeline, Pacelli knew that staff members might be hesitant to embrace the change. To help keep staff involved and invested, Pacelli kept frequent communication on the process and their required tasks.

“There were certain groups and people who had to do their required tasks earlier than others, so we were sure to give them times, access to training videos, and urge them to use the training database,” said Bushman.

“With weekly updates, we first most wanted our staff to know that we were supporting them as much as possible, while also making the migration as user friendly as we could,” said Marten.

Pacelli also saw the migration as an opportunity to organize their data, such as deleting old accounts, aiding in their fast migration. Once Qmlativ was ready at Pacelli, the district’s support to their staff didn’t stop.

“In order to help staff not feel abandoned, Duncan and I held sandbox workshops where they could come in and get help,” said Plaski. “Luckily a lot of tabs from SMS 2.0 are in the same spot as Qmlativ, which I think helped give users a basic familiarity in a world of brand new.”

Apart from communication, data cleanup, and workshops, Pacelli found Skyward’s support essential in their successful Qmlativ implementation.

“We had a fantastic team at Skyward working with us,” said Plaski. “Any time we had something come up, I would reach out to our project manager and hear back from them within the hour. If our designated contact didn’t know the answer to one of our questions, she would look into it and find the answer for us. She never left us hanging, and we appreciate that immensely.”

Ultimately, Pacelli is happy with their decision to migrate and has seen many improvements already.

"For questions that I have, I have found the Professional Development Center (PDC) a great resource to find answers to questions that pop up throughout the year."

Bountiful benefits

Since implementing Qmlativ, Pacelli has found some of their favorite new features. Most noteworthy? Enhanced security.

“We noticed that a lot of staff had access to things in the system that they shouldn’t, so it’s nice to have better control of that now,” said Plaski. “I also love the user impersonation feature, which saves me a lot of time going to that employee to see things from their end. Now, I can see exactly what they see and troubleshoot why they are having troubles.”

Although Pacelli has successfully migrated to Qmlativ, they are still continuously making updates as needed with continued support from Skyward.

“I still tweak around with a lot of the reports,” said Plaski. “If I can’t figure it out myself, Skyward is always quick to respond on my support tickets with the answer.”

“For questions that I have, I have found the Professional Development Center (PDC) a great resource to find answers to questions that pop up throughout the year,” said Bushman.

Due to Pacelli’s success, they look forward to continuing to update their system, and help others to do the same

What’s next?

Pacelli has already had another district reach out, curious about their experience with Qmlativ; the advice they gave that district rings true for others interested in using the latest Skyward solutions:

“The number one thing I would suggest is to have a great team,” said Bushman. “We’re lucky enough to have Duncan, Kristin, and others here that can dedicate themselves to Skyward, because it is such a big transition and there are a lot of components to it. The other thing I would stress is the importance of communication to stakeholders. Students, staff, families...anyone that’s going to be involved in the transition will want and need updates on what is happening.”

In the future, Pacelli is looking forward to diving further into how it can improve processes in the district.

“As we use the system more, we will know more of what we want to implement,” said Bushman. “One thing we look forward to is introducing online forms more, such as for field trips and with returning registration for students who are already enrolled.”

Skyward and Pacelli look forward to many more years of parallel growth and continuing to enrich the Stevens Point community.