Technically, the county will reimburse the school system for its $300,000 purchase.

According to the Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) Web site, “This secure Web-based tool provides educators with direct and immediate access to a full spectrum of data on a student's entire career in the North Carolina schools.”

The program was approved by the state Board of Education in the late 1990s and pilot schools began using the system between 1999 and 2001.

Person County Schools is among the last group of so-labeled Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to switch to the NC WISE system.

Person County Schools Supt. Dr. Larry W. Cartner said, “We are in Wave 3, the final implementation wave across the state.

“This is a year-long process, with specific monthly timetables established by DPI,” Cartner explained. 

Much of the first semester of the 2008-09 academic year, he said, will be “spent in the training of the local team, setting up hardware, and converting data to meet state standards.”

The idea behind NC WISE, said Cartner, “is for the state to have a ‘real-time’ data bank of student information.  Currently, schools exchange paper records and much time is lost as students relocate across the state.”

One requirement of NC WISE, Cartner said, “is that every teacher must have a dedicated computer for NC WISE. That computer is available only to the teacher and has to meet the hardware requirements set by the state.”

Both charter schools in Person County already are using NC WISE. Bethel Hill Charter School began its conversion last year and Roxboro Community School, which accepted its first students two years ago, started out using the system.

Ann Wrenn, who manages NC WISE for RCS, called it “a massive system” of data that stores student attendance, immunization records, grades and much more. The school can also upload standardized tests from the state, she said.

Each teacher or other authorized user has their own sign-on, Wrenn explained, so that teachers can enter data each day on their own classroom computer. Or, Wrenn said, those with sign-on capability can use any computer that is equipped with the NC WISE software.

That software is free, and is downloaded from the state’s NC WISE site.

Wrenn said RCS did not buy computers specifically for use with the NC WISE system, but did make sure, when buying the hardware, that it met “certain standards” set by the state.

John Betterton, Bethel Hill Charter School principal, said his faculty works with classroom computers that are as much as 15 years old. The newest computers at BHCS, he said, are about three-years-old.

The school is asking its PTA for $10,000 this year to buy new computers, Betterton said.

Betterton said he sent one person to Raleigh for the NC WISE training, and that one person is helping the rest of the staff learn the process.

BHCS went online with the system last March, Betterton said, but he has been shifting to its use in phases.

“It is a wonderful program,” Betterton said, “but we don’t want to swamp teachers with it all at once.”

Betterton said, “We plan for teachers to have access to all of the information and be able to use it” by the end of the upcoming school year.

Cartner said Person County Schools staff and faculty would be completing the state required training throughout the coming academic year. 

“We appreciate the fact that the board of commissioners funded this additional one-time expense,” Cartner said. “They are helping the district meet the increasing technology requirements we face.”