One of the many benefits of Sycamore School is there is no restriction on which schools can utilize the product to serve their needs. In the past, we’ve welcomed schools that were classified as private, parochial, charter, Montessori, and more. While we are open to working with any school to help improve their day-to-day efficiency, our product was designed to specialize in K-8 private schools.

For St. James/Seton, they fit that billing to a tee. Based in Omaha, NE, they are a Catholic elementary school that serves preschool through eighth grade. Having been Sycamore customers since 2012, they were searching for a user-friendly school management system that was reliable, had few disruptions, and was responsive to their needs as a private elementary school. It’s been our privilege to have developed a relationship with St. James/Seton for the past decade by supporting their everyday challenges and contributing to their educational success.

Anyone that’s been involved or worked in administration at a school knows how vital a school management system is. With access to lunch orders, student records, attendance, financial payments, and so much more, administrators rely on a school management system more than anyone else at the school. For this reason, Sycamore School is tailored to administrators to streamline processes in an effective and efficient manner through our various modules and features.

One particular process St. James/Seton has used to improve administrative tasks is the tracking of student absences and tardies. There are a multitude of reports they generate in Sycamore on a consistent basis to track how many students are absent and tardy during a given timeframe. This allows their administrators to work with the students who are regularly missing school and classes and develop a plan of action to rectify that issue.

Checking class averages, grades, and assignments is also crucial for St. James/Seton. The constant need to monitor progress of students for eligibility for sports and other extracurricular activities, administrators can monitoring the progress of students and can easily access any classroom to view grades and assignments that have been posted to calculate the overall grade. Whether it’s for an individual student or a group of students, Sycamore has had a significant impact in assessing academic performance for the administration at St. James/Seton.

Throughout the course of the school year, most schools would agree that it’s imperative to keep families, students, and staff informed about noteworthy items. St. James/Seton is certainly no exception. They’ve found multiple communicative resources within Sycamore School to disseminate important information.

One of those resources is batch email. They make use of our integration with SparkPost to send emails en masse to families and staff. These emails consist of weekly news, office reminders, holiday greetings, etc. Teachers also have the option to email families directly in their classroom, which gives them the convenience to send a quick message related to a class project, activity, field trip, etc. Using SparkPost to send batch emails has been a valuable tool to streamline communication and enhance overall efficiency for St.James/Seton’s teachers and administration.

Documents are additional resources that have facilitated collaboration and communication. Administrators have the ability to upload documents for families to access throughout the entirety of the school year. This can include the school handbook, morning drop-off schedule, graduation information, and more. By placing documents on the school homepage, this gives easy access for families and staff members to locate the documents and stay up-to-date on the happenings at St. James/Seton, thus improving the educational experience. 

While families may not access a school management system as often as administration and staff, their interaction with the product still plays a critical role in their students’ education. At St. James/Seton, one resource they’ve come to highly value within the Sycamore product is the school calendar. St. James/Seton does a tremendous job of updating the calendar with events, activities, notices for no-school days, etc. With the calendar being available on the desktop and web app, families appreciate the accessibility of the school calendar to help ensure they stay active and engaged in their students’ day-to-day education.

For any family, the 24/7 access to their students’ grades is almost always going to be the top priority. Much like the calendar, families can view grades on the desktop and web app, giving them the flexibility to view grades any time they wish from multiple devices. This user-friendly access to view grades, progress reports, report cards, homework assignments, etc., enables families to put their child’s education at the forefront. Most importantly, the families at St. James/Seton appreciate the flexibility and simplicity Sycamore School offers in giving them direct access to grades, and using that as a powerful motivator for student success and academic performance.