Scheduling Even More of a Pain With New HISD Software

Once upon a time (or rather, last summer), HISD spent 18.4 million on state-of-the-art scheduling and student information software called Chancery. Sadly, it doesn't work. It doesn't work so extremely, that the district has had to pay more than six hundred thousand dollars in overtime to teachers and other personnel who show up early and stay 'til after dark to log in and record grades when the system isn't backlogged. (They're suing Pearson, who makes the software, for the money).

But, you're saying, at least it prints out schedules and report cards and stuff, right? Well, it does...but more than 6,000 report cards in the last six week grading period had to be reissued because of mistakes, and over the summer thousands of schedules weren't ready in time for the first day of school. Frustrated teachers are struggling to enter grades before the October 25th report card deadline.

No word on whether having to grade it on the system has made teachers assign less homework yet, but it can't be too far off...(hey, our eight year old cousin can dream!)