After years of registration within a built-in page on the DIS website, the school administration rolled out SchoolsBuddy, a platform linked with Powerschool, to manage sign-ups for after-school activities, lunch clubs and sports for the 25-26 school year. While the shift promised increased efficiency, students and staff harbored mixed reactions.
Initially led by Elementary Principal Mr. Vis, the modification became official after a successful trial at last year’s parent-teacher-student conferences. “The need arose due to a change in elementary school, when we started student-led conferences. We needed multiple families to be able to sign up for one time slot, and our previous system did not allow that. So, we began exploring options, and SchoolsBuddy was an option that met the needs,” Mr. Vis said.
In addition to inefficiency for parents, the former system also complicated teacher attendance. “It was really just several spreadsheets with different ASA and sports, so the information was all over the place. When taking attendance using SchoolsBuddy, it shows up automatically in PowerSchool,” Secondary Principal Dr. Willette said.
To resolve these shortcomings, the administration team, Mrs. Ringrose and Mr. Bergan expanded SchoolsBuddy to include lunch club and ASA registration. “It was definitely a team effort, but I suppose it started with me. We had a lot of people working on it and giving input into the decision. It allowed for a lot of accountability for where our students are and what programs we offer,” elementary principal Mr. Vis said.
The new site bolsters advantages. “SchoolsBuddy is a portal that helps organize school events. It makes things easier with online invitations for sign-ups, consent forms, and attendance, as everything is in one place,” Activities Director Mrs. Ringrose said.
Teachers also noted improvements over the old platform. “It is a little tricky to navigate sometimes, but it was easy to mark the attendance. The previous program had frequent errors regarding the attendance list, with a couple of parents emailing that their children were marked absent even though I marked them present,” Math and Computer Science teacher Mr. Gall said.
Despite the trial run, students raised concerns about inefficiencies. “There are many technical difficulties with the website. I would have to wait for 1 minute to enter the website. I prefer the DIS website over SchoolsBuddy. Many students are used to the former program,” said sophomore James Kim.
But at the same time, students agreed that the advantages outweighed the challenges. “The DIS website’s display made it harder to view options and choose courses. SchoolsBuddy is much easier to access. But when you sign up, it takes a lot of time to refresh. Except for that, SchoolsBuddy was much easier compared to last year to sign up,” junior Lucy Kim said.
Despite initial setbacks, the rollout of SchoolsBuddy offers increased efficiency for teachers, students and parents in the long run. “The first time using SchoolsBuddy is going to have some frustrations. We’re addressing them and trying to make it as smooth as possible for trimester two. We’ll see how it goes, but we’re hoping that it will be a much easier process for trimesters two and three,” Mr. Bergan said.
