Vigo County Schools, in west central Indiana, is using the Internet to build three new elementary schools. Not far from Newark, Ohio, the Licking Valley Local School District is putting its student information systems up on the Web for parents, students and teachers to see. Indianapolis Public Schools have tapped the Internet to manage security and access control. In Hobbs Schools in New Mexico, the Internet enables schools to communicate with parents — for emergency or routine matters — at the click of a software mouse.

In recent years, the productive reach of the Internet has extended into virtually every nook and cranny of K-12 school management and administration. Essentially, the Internet is a communications tool. But the word communications does not fully convey the magic that Internet technology can conjure. Understanding the power of the net requires getting into the details of its virtually infinite applications. Here’s a look at four examples.

Of course, construction people still build schools. But online construction management tools are streamlining the process, lowering costs and making construction people more productive. Based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., e-Builder provides Web-based project management systems that foster swift and accurate communications between school district managers, architects, prime contractors, sub-contractors and vendors.

Web-based tools such as e-Builder can help shorten development and construction times; organize and provide access to all documentation, from plans to estimates to change orders; reduce the cost of compiling and distributing information; manage multiple projects with exception-based reports designed for individual users; identify cost and schedule issues early; and improve accountability by identifying the person responsible and the status of all tasks.

Vigo County Schools (Ind.) is currently building three elementary schools. The construction manager on the projects, Hannum, Wagle, Cline of Terre Haute, stores all documents related to the project on an e-Builder Website.

Vigo County’s superintendent, facilities manager, technology manager, purchasing manager and the principals of each of the three new schools can all log into the site with passwords and monitor progress. Each administrator has access to files relevant to his or her responsibilities. If a principal wants to check color selections, he can log into e-builder, says Toni Presnell, Hannum, Wagle, Cline’s project manager. When a sub-contractor requests a change order, it happens in e-Builder, which automatically notifies Vigo County’s facilities manager by e-mail. If the superintendent wants to discuss an issue with a contractor, he can do it by e-mail on the Website.

“One of the system’s biggest advantages for school people is communications,” says Presnell.“If you want to see where a project is, you don’t have to use the phone to try and find someone; you just log into the Website. If you have a question, you can ask the right person by e-mail on the Website.”

As a central repository for all information related to the job, the site eliminates the need to fax large documents back and forth. For example, Hannum, Wagle, Cline sends all of its submittals through the Website.“Specific products must be approved by the construction manager and the architect before installation,” Presnell says.

Submittals related to all building products flow from the contractors to the Website, where the construction manager, architect and school administrators monitor the information and make quality judgments. Automated features keep everyone up to date. When the construction manager posts a meeting announcement on the site, e-mail flows from the site to everyone involved, including school administrators.

While not all owners may want to be intimately involved in construction projects, school administrators seem to enjoy using construction Websites, says Presnell. “Vigo County seems to like the technology,” she says. “I think they feel like they have more control because of it.”

The days when a student can sign his or her parents’ names to a report card are coming to a close with the arrival of Web-based student information systems. Within a year or two, for example, parents will be able to log onto a student information Website set up by Licking Valley Local Schools in Newark, Ohio. Once there, they will be able to review information summarizing grades, attendance, disciplinary problems and homework.

Teachers will record information in all of these areas in a Web-enabled program developed by ACE Software of Grove City, Ohio. Students will use the system as well to make scheduling requests, check on homework assignments and track their grades.

Mike Kelly, director of Information Technology for Licking Valley, is beginning a pilot test for the new system. “Right now, I’m setting up different scenarios to view data,” he says. “And, our teachers are already using the interface to input grades and attendance.”

It will take a while to build the two-sided system, into which teachers send information and from which parents and students retrieve it. The software components include the ACE ADM 2000 school information package and a new module designed to retrieve information from the school information package and make it available through a Website.

Parents like the idea but have voiced concerns about security. “Security is important, and there is quite a bit of security built into the package,” Kelly says. “We don’t want a parent or a student to be able to access information about other students. So when we enter a parent into the system, we list what student records they can access. That way they can only get to their own kids.”

Kelly also believes the system will offer cost saving benefits as well. “I can give teachers and counselors access to information via the Web without buying more licenses for serial access to the box that contains all the data,” he says. “That’s a tremendous cost savings.”

Serial access means that many people have direct Web access to a software application system, in this case the ACE student information system. When that happens, an organization must purchase software licenses for each user. “To enable every parent, student and teacher in a 2,200-student district to access that data directly would cost a couple million dollars,” Kelly says. “A Web system like this one only requires one user license for the Web system to access the data. Any number of people can then access the Web system.”

Kelly has a selfish motivation to make the system work. In addition to his responsibilities as IT director, he also serves as the education management information system (EMIS) coordinator for Licking Valley. EMIS is an electronic reporting standard used by the Ohio Department of Education. The new ACE module includes extraction routines that can pull data out of the student information system and fill out files that go to the state. “This part of the system will provide productivity benefits for me,” he says.

The Indianapolis Public School System has begun to automate the management of various security systems by connecting security management software to the district’s 100-megabit fiber optic internal network.

The first step is done. Richard Joest, the district’s Technology and Security director, has integrated access control readers controlling doors throughout the 100-building system into a network-enabled software system called Enterprise Buildings Integrator (EBI). Developed by Honeywell International of Morris Township, N.J., EBI is a suite of applications that integrate security, digital video, life safety, asset location and building automation systems.

The readers provide card access to administrative buildings, and EBI sets and manages who can go through what doors at what times of day. In addition, as the district has upgraded its schools to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), card-readers have been added to elevators and ADA entrances. The readers will automatically open doors when people with disabilities present their cards. When the readers are in operation, the blue buttons that automatically open doors for people with disabilities can be disabled. “If anyone can push those buttons and open a door, that defeats the purpose of locking the schools,” Joest says.

Similarly, card readers have been added to elevators used by staff and students with disabilities. EBI manages each of the card-readers throughout the school district network.

“This is important today in light of nationwide security concerns that have led many schools to remain locked down during the day,” says Joest. “The access control system allows us to turn off the large blue buttons that open doors for people with disabilities.” The next steps will integrate fire alarms, door alarms and security cameras located at all district schools and administrative buildings. Joest plans to install computers in each building and connect alarm outputs to them. The computers will then communicate with the central security station across the fiber network. “We’re going to use the Web-based features of EBI to tie the alarms and the cameras together,” Joest says. “We’ll be able to train a camera on an area as soon as an alarm trips. This will improve on our old system that used a dial up connection to the central station. That process took 30 to 60 seconds. This will be instant.”

EBI will eventually permit the security center to lock and unlock doors and turn the alarms on and off at the beginning and end of the day. Right now, a custodian or principal unlocks the doors to each school in the morning, turns off the alarms and notifies the school police that the building has been opened. “When this part of the system is automated, we’ll have all the schools displayed on screens in either red or green status — locked or open,” Joest says. “This will eliminate the need for people to call in each morning and evening, and to log openings and closings on paper.”

Once the remote access capabilities are on line, the security center will also be able to open doors for construction people working after hours and on weekends. Currently, security officers must drive to different buildings, wait for contractors to arrive and open the door. When the work is done, an officer must return to lock up.

Another Honeywell product facilitates emergency, as well as routine, communications between schools and parents through the Web and through other communications media. Called Instant Alert, the system was designed to satisfy crisis emergency response and crisis management guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Education.

Instant Alert relieves teachers and administrators from dealing with cumbersome and often ineffective phone trees, and enables them to focus on the needs of students during an emergency.

Parents and guardians use the Web to enroll in the system and record their contact information, which might be a telephone or cell phone number, an e-mail address, a pager number or a combination of these devices. Should an emergency occur, the principal or designated administrator will type a text message into the system and then records a voice message. A mouse click then sends the information to the appropriate communications devices. Parents receive a consistent message that describes what has happened, what the school is doing to protect students and what a parent can do to help.

“Getting in touch with parents with a consistent message is a big challenge,” says Leslie Rothwell, district director of Pupil Services for schools in Castro Valley, Calif. “I’m impressed with the speed, accuracy and flexibility of the Honeywell system.”

In Hobbs, N.M., many parents spend their workday isolated on oil drilling rigs. They may have access to a laptop computer or a cell phone. But, conventional telephones are probably not available. “With this system, we can use all kinds of communications devices to get in touch with parents — computer e-mail, cell phones, PDAs and beepers,” says Stan Rounds,superintendent of Hobbs Schools.

Jim Peterson, superintendent of schools in Porter Township, N.M., notes that the system can save critical time during an emergency and goes on to say that he has also found routine uses for Instant Alert: “If we have to cancel a softball practice, we use the system to notify parents that their kids will be leaving earlier than normal,” he says.

By itself, the Internet isn’t really magic. It can’t put up a building, grade tests or prevent emergencies. What it can do is streamline the communications required to accomplish these tasks. In that regard, maybe it is magic.