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Exeter Township School Board discusses plan to migrate from Skyward to Sapphire student‑information system
Summary
On June 2 the Exeter Township School Board’s committee of the whole reviewed a proposed migration from Skyward to Sapphire for the 2027–28 school year, including a $70,000 onboarding fee, potential annual licensing changes, file‑conversion concerns, and requests for service‑level guarantees and implementation details.
The Exeter Township School Board on June 2 discussed a plan to move the district’s student‑information system (SIS) from Skyward to Sapphire, a transition administrators said they would seek to complete for the 2027–28 school year.
Dr. Josh Hoy, director of teaching and learning, told the committee that Skyward is undergoing a large ‘‘Cumulous’’ upgrade that the district judged insufficient for its needs and that, after reviewing alternatives including Infinite Campus, administrators and teacher and principal stakeholders recommended converting to Sapphire. "We decided as a group to move forward with converting in the 2027–2028 school year to look at implementing this product called Sapphire," Dr. Hoy said.
The nut of the district’s case was cost, functionality and local support. Administrators said the district currently pays an annual Skyward license of $54,914 and additional integrated components—an annual corp charge of $14,088, Q‑migration at $9,713 and an Ed‑Insight data‑warehouse fee of $23,636—that together with a separate IEP‑writer (if retained) could leave annual Skyward‑related costs in the ballpark of $117,000. By contrast, administrators said Sapphire includes a built‑in data‑warehouse and a curriculum manager that the district lacks today; the vendor also advertises local (Pennsylvania‑based) support that administrators said has been responsive for other nearby districts.
Board members focused on several implementation risks. Dr. Andrea Batler pressed for specifics about conversion guarantees after reading the contract clause that says not all supplied documents can be converted; Dr. Hoy said Sapphire has migrated other districts from Skyward and that many files are simple exports (CSV) but agreed to provide a clearer estimate of which document types would transfer and what the district should expect. The board also asked for a detailed service‑level agreement on uptime and technical‑support response times for peak periods such as the start of the school year.
Administrators described the likely timeline as a 12–14 month implementation, with a $70,000 onboarding fee to begin the work, phased training of stakeholders next year and a public go‑live for families and teachers in 2027–28. Dr. Hoy said the district will still use Skyward during onboarding and transition work, which means the district would pay both systems during the overlap year.
Several board members asked for contractual clarifications to limit cost overruns—specifically whether data‑retrieval services or specialized conversion tasks would be billed as add‑ons—and for the vendor to specify which file types might require manual conversion. Dr. Hoy said he would obtain those details and also requested that the vendor supply explicit service‑level metrics.
Why it matters: a vendor change affects district operations from attendance and grading to special‑education IEP workflows and public‑facing curriculum access. Administrators told the committee they intend to be deliberate, to phase teacher training so staff are not overwhelmed and to use professional‑development days to support the roll‑out.
Next steps: the education committee forwarded the item to the district’s upcoming voting meeting for formal action and asked administration to return with clarified contract language on conversion guarantees, a summary of annual costs in the overlap year, and vendor service‑level terms.
