Focus/SIS

Focus/SIS is a Student Information System (SIS) designed to assist K-12 and postsecondary educational institutions in managing student data, optimizing processes, enhancing communication, and facilitating data-driven decision-making. It is suitable for school districts of various sizes, ranging from a few hundred to over 200,000 students. According to the vendor, Focus/SIS is utilized by education administrators, teachers, students, and parents across the education industry.

Key Features

K-12 SIS: A comprehensive student information system specifically tailored for K-12 educational institutions. It efficiently manages student data, including enrollment, demographics, attendance, grades, and discipline. Focus/SIS provides role-based portals for administrators, teachers, students, and parents, along with customizable forms, reports, and alerts to meet district-specific needs.

CTE/Adult Ed SIS: A specialized student information system designed for Career and Technical Education (CTE) and Adult Education programs. It enables effective management of student enrollment, demographics, attendance, grades, and transcripts. Focus/SIS supports financial aid and student accounting for CTE and Adult Ed programs, providing customizable forms, reports, and alerts tailored to meet their specific requirements.

Before & Aftercare: Streamlines the management of before and aftercare programs, offering a user-friendly platform for parents to register their children, manage payments, and access student information. Focus/SIS tracks attendance, schedules, and student accounting for before and aftercare programs. It also includes communication features for parents and staff.

Special Student Services: Supports the management of special education programs, 504 plans, and Response to Intervention (RTI). Focus/SIS seamlessly integrates with enrollment, discipline, state reporting, and progress monitoring systems. It provides customizable forms for individualized education plans (IEPs) and other special services, while accurately tracking student services, caseloads, and compliance at the field level.

Finance, HR, & Payroll: Includes an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to manage school and district budgets, purchasing, human resources, and payroll. Focus/SIS handles budget planning, journal entries, purchase orders, invoices, checks, and receipts. It efficiently manages employee pay steps, positions, leave banks, deductions, and benefits, while offering document management, approvals, and notifications for finance, HR, and payroll processes.

Attendance & Tardy Solutions: Tracks student attendance and tardiness in real-time. Provides check-in/check-out systems for school-based needs and offers hall pass management. Focus/SIS automates excessive tardy referrals/detentions and supports mobile and kiosk-based attendance tracking.

Integration: Allows seamless integration with third-party systems, including curriculum support, special education, transportation, library, food service, and alert systems. Focus/SIS supports API calls, OneRoster, EdFi, and secure FTP file and batch processing. It enables data sharing and synchronization between systems, simplifying data exchange and improving efficiency across multiple platforms.

Architecture & Hosting: Built on a 3-tier architecture using industry-standard technologies and security measures. Offers cloud hosting options for scalability, flexibility, and disaster recovery. Focus/SIS provides automatic backups and data redundancy to ensure the safety of critical information. It supports integration with other systems and data sharing through secure APIs.

Mobile App & Responsive UI: Offers a mobile app for administrators, teachers, students, and parents to access student information on the go. The responsive user interface adapts to different devices and screen sizes, providing easy access to schedules, grades, assignments, attendance, and communication features through mobile devices. Supports native apps for iOS, Android, and Windows platforms.