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San Francisco school board approves $1.73 million contract for School Loop classroom portal
Summary
The San Francisco Unified School District voted to award a $1,729,000, five-year contract to School Loop for a classroom portal and parent‑communication system; the district will pilot the system at 14 sites in January 2009 with districtwide rollout planned for February.
The San Francisco Unified School District on Oct. 14 approved a contract award to School Loop for a classroom portal the district said will give parents and students real‑time access to assignments, grades, calendars and district news. Staff and members of the selection committee told the board the vendor scored highest in a months‑long RFP and selection process that involved teachers, parents, students and administrators.
Brianne Ford, who led the selection process, said the district evaluated proposals for more than six months and prioritized access for families regardless of language or home Internet access. "Our goal was to improve connections between home and school by providing an online classroom environment that includes teacher and classroom web pages, lesson plans, grades, assignments and attendance," Ford said.
Parents and school staff who participated on the committee described School Loop’s user experience and outreach features. Parent Corey Fake said the system would let parents see grades and assignments earlier than in past years and help families intervene sooner: "Parents will be able to access their child's grades before it's too late," he said. Assistant Principal Michael Reimer said the platform consolidated communication tools the school had tried separately.
Mark Gross, School Loop’s CEO and founder, demonstrated the product at the meeting and highlighted an integrated TeleParent phone component for families without Internet access. Gross described the system's approach: "Instead of people having to go to the information, the information should come to you. It should be organized for you, and it should be easy to use." He also said the TeleParent service delivers prerecorded calls in multiple languages and that School Loop’s interface supports Chinese and Spanish translations.
Board members asked detailed questions about cost, pilot sites, teacher training, language coverage and interoperability with the district’s student information system (SIS). Staff said the $1,729,000 figure includes a five‑year licensing and maintenance contract, implementation and training, TeleParent costs, and a development partnership to add requested functionality. Staff committed to emailing board members a five‑year cost breakdown and described a pilot of 13–14 sites beginning in January 2009 to assess districtwide support needs.
On implementation and adoption, staff told the board the district will compensate a teacher leader at each pilot site for training and that the rollout would include roughly four hours of training per teacher initially, coupled with community partner outreach. The district also said attendance data would be displayed during the first phase via daily syncs from the SIS, with development work planned to allow direct online attendance entry in the future.
The board moved, seconded and approved the contract award. The motion to award the RFP passed and staff will proceed with contracting and the planned pilot.
