Skyward outage disrupts operations; district approves eFinance rollout and plans year-long mirror

Superintendent Miss Piazza told the board Skyward — the district's current business/HR/finance platform — had experienced a national outage that left staff unable to access critical systems for billing and payroll. "Skyward has been down for a period of time, and it is still not up," she said, adding the district is "at the mercy" of the vendor to restore service.

Because Skyward remained unavailable, the business office asked the board for authorization to pay regular July bills now with ratification at the August 11, 2026 regular meeting to avoid interruption. Administration also presented a plan to begin transitioning to eFinance/PowerSchool. A staff member explained the recommended migration timeline: the human-resources module could be completed within months and accounting would likely be operational in the spring, with both systems mirrored through the 2026–27 fiscal year to preserve audit data before discontinuing Skyward on June 30, 2027.

A board member asked whether the district would seek rebates or withhold payment if Skyward downtime continued; Miss Piazza suggested negotiating reduced payment for months when service was not delivered. The board approved the eFinance deployment and related technology purchases presented on the agenda (including an Infoblox purchase of $58,824 and a Google Workspace renewal of $32,277), while one member reserved a 'nay' vote on the Skyward renewal line because the system was not functioning at the time of the meeting.

Administration emphasized the practical need to keep both systems active for a full audit year to ensure accurate financial statements and a safe migration of historic data.