Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

Score7.4 out of 10

229 Reviews and Ratings

What is Blackbaud Education Management Solutions?

Blackbaud Education Management Solutions is a unified student management system for K–12 private schools.

Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™: Gives schools and families the ability to track admissions progress from first impressions all the way through the application process to acceptance, enrollment, and tuition payment.

Blackbaud Learning Management System™: Track students' academic performance and progression with 24/7 cloud access to submissions, assignments, discussions, online communities and tools.

Blackbaud Student Information System™: A source of data and information, ranging from schedules and grades to course requests and attendance history.

Blackbaud School Website System™: It allows users to leverage all the information sources within a school community for website content purposes. It allows schools to update content, change design, add pages, and create new sites with ease.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of Topics pages help organize units of learning throughout the year in the Learning Management System

Screenshot of Blackbaud's education management solutions come with strong reporting tools to get the information you need quickly

Screenshot of Schedule view makes it easy for teachers to manage their days

Screenshot of Blackbaud Enrollment Management System Admissions Checklists help applicants track their progress in the admissions process

Screenshot of Keep track of all the key information about your students in one place

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Screenshot of Topics pages help organize units of learning throughout the year in the Learning Management System

Verified User

Employee in Finance and Accounting (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Blackbaud Education Management Solutions for student enrollment and billing at a trade school. It has created an easier billing setup and payment system for us, but it is a bit clunky when it comes to enrollment and students viewing their bills.

Pros

It's great that we are able to have billing generated once a student signs their contract.
it's great that students are able to make their payments in their portal by multiple payment methods.
it is great that we are able to give parental access to student billing.

Cons

It's annoying that I am not able to give access to a student's billing portal to someone unless they are listed as a "parent" - some students have siblings or other close relatives that want to make a payment and I have to make them a "parent" to get access.
Viewing a student's bill is not always accurate in their portal, according to statement dates, which I then have to explain.
There is no "refund" functionality and we have had to create work arounds.

Return on Investment

Slightly streamlined our admissions process, but still remains clunky.
The Enrollment sections lacks a place for our staff to record information based on calls and emails, but have still found a way to do so.
Student billing statements are often confusing, but able to be saved and edited to make it clearer.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT

Other Software Used

Sage Intacct, Paylocity, Campus Cafe

Matthew Mizzi

IT in Professional Services at Country Day (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used to use Blackbaud for tuition management, student information system, learning management, and enrollment. Now we just use them for historical tuition management data. There were some good benefits for using Blackbaud for all these services in a school however there was some difficulties using it with a larger Montessori school with mixed grade classrooms.

Pros

Student information system
Enrollment contracts
Tuition Management

Cons

Contract creation
Inquiry information gathering
Smart contract carry over into tuition management

Return on Investment

Blackbaud started out affordable (20k) but went to 28k after 3 years
Could not scale schools, wanted 15k for each additional school
Time on tuition management went down due to Blackbaud handling parent calls

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Veracross and Schoology Learning

Bradley Becque

Director of Education in Customer Service at Brehm Preparatory School (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Blackbaud serves as our Learning Management Software. It allows us to have a place to record student grades, assignments, attendance, and learning profiles that is easily accessible across our organization.

Pros

The customer support is phenomenal.
The ease of access for both students and parents makes it extremely easy to use.
Constantly incorporating user feedback to enhance the site.

Cons

The ability to differentiate assignments.
The need for a positive reward system feature.
Ways to use the conduct to support a PBIS.

Most Important Features

Having grades in a singular location.
Having class rosters that are shareable.
Having team rosters that are easily shareable.

Return on Investment

It's allowed us to have been communication with our parents.
It's allowed for better communication with the students.
It's allowed for better communication amongst our teaching staff.

Other Software Used

Google Drive, Google Sheets

JT Amirault View profile

Director of Information Services in Information Technology at Burr and Burton Academy (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Blackbaud Education Management Solutions is used campus-wide as our primary solution for managing student information, learning management, admission/enrollment, public website, and athletics/extra-curricular, advancement, conduct, and accounting. Teachers post and students access class materials, assignments, assessments, grades, and schedules; teachers record class attendance, communicate with students and parents, view student progress and permissions/clearances for extracurricular activities; parents view student info, progress/report cards, and submit online forms. Grades and attendance data fuel program to determine and support at-risk students and eligibility for extra-curricular activities. Data also drives review of gender-based performance differences and classroom space utilization. Off-campus tutors access course information to keep in sync with on-campus classes. Resources are posted such as information sheets, how-to videos, school and area resource links, calendars, etc. Athletic teams, games and practice schedules, and results are managed. A school store sells logo'd products. Event registration and online giving is utilized. Parents, students, and employees access the authenticated area of the site while all the public-at-large access the front-face website. Tight integration with G-Suite augments Blackbaud and enhances collaboration.

Pros

Classroom management of rosters, assignments/assessment, and grading at a class grade book level and grades for report cards. The grading function is flexible in terms of how a teacher might manage their class grade book and support consistency for rolling up grades for report cards.
"Pushpage" communications to constituents is a powerful tool for targeted messages and for tracking results of messages read, bounced, opt-out, and clicked through.

Cons

In attendance management, there is a nice feature to alert parents and staff when a student reaches a threshold for number of times tardy. It is difficult to do the same for absences ... we have a policy that when a student reaches a threshold of number of classes absent, their grade starts getting reduced for each additional absence. This is hard to track at a class level ... 5 absences could be 1 day out missing 5 different classes or it could be across multiple days and be 5 misses of the same class.
Online forms have good basic functions, however, additional formatting control and ability to include/merge more data from student records would greatly add value.
easier integration with other SIS / LMS ... like CANVAS and google classroom

Return on Investment

All teachers use the grade book and report card grading functions. This is a big positive for teacher time as well as for administration.
Online course materials, assignments, and assessments have help reduced paper usage.

Other Software Used

Canvas, Google Classroom, FileMaker Pro

Usability

Heidi Offel

Admission at Heritage Hall (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use EMS daily in Admission for intake of inquiries and applications to our school, running lists and data, and management of the current student population.

Pros

Runs lists based on information entered into the system.
Offer knowledge-based assistance/links.
Offer knowledge-based chat opportunities to dive into unique problems.

Cons

They are always improving on how to create easier workarounds and solutions when it comes to "marrying" systems with another system.

Most Important Features

Communication between Academic, Core, Enrollment Mgmt and BBTM.

Return on Investment

I can't think of any other than users being frustrated with running lists and not having accuracy. But lists are only as accurate as the data you put into them.

Alternatives Considered

Blackbaud Tuition Management and Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

Veracross

FACTS Student Information System

Senior Systems

Blackbaud Education Management Solutions

What is Blackbaud Education Management Solutions?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Reviews

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Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Alternatives Considered

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Other Software Used

Usability

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

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