We welcome Florida school districts that currently use, are implementing, or are planning to adopt the FOCUS Student Information System to explore partnering with PAEC Student Data Services.
If your district is considering joining, we invite you to reach out to our team for an informal discussion about your needs, challenges, and goals. You can contact us at StudentDataServices@paec.org or 850-257-7426 to get started. We’ll walk you through the process and next steps if your district chooses to move forward.
Below you’ll find answers to common questions about our program, but the best next step is simply a conversation. We look forward to hearing from you.
Frequently Asked Questions: Click each question below to see the answers
What does it cost to join PAEC Student Data Services (SDS)?
PAEC SDS is a non-profit organization. Each participating district pays a prorated assessment that supports our annual program budget. This fee structure is updated annually. The most recent fee structure includes:
- A fixed base assessment of $16,500 per district
- A variable assessment of $2.04 per FTE, based on the district’s most recent October FTE count
For new districts, there is also a one-time supplemental fee equal to 10% of their total first-year assessment.
Are there any requirements for districts to join PAEC SDS?
A district must have at least one dedicated MIS position
In order to be considered for membership a district must have at least one dedicated MIS position. We want to make it clear that our program does not replace the need for this position in the district, but we do provide services that help make their job easier and more effective. This MIS position is still responsible for reporting the district data to the state and will be the primary point of contact for our program in the district. This individual or team will be actively involved in our program, training, and support process.
Can I join PAEC SDS without being a member of PAEC?
We welcome districts in Florida that currently use, are implementing, or are planning to adopt the FOCUS Student Information System
YES! School districts in Florida that currently use, are implementing, or are planning to adopt the FOCUS Student Information System (SIS) can join PAEC SDS. Your district is not required to be a member of the PAEC consortium. In fact, we currently have participating districts from both NEFEC and Heartland consortiums.
Does a district have to be located in a specific area to join PAEC SDS?
Any school district located in Florida can join PAEC SDS.
You do not have to be within the panhandle region to join, in fact we have districts all over Florida, including south and northwest Florida, who have joined our program.
Who are some of the members of PAEC SDS?
We ♥ our PAEC SDS District Partners!
Our District Partners include school districts across Florida.
How does our existing support with FOCUS work if our district joins PAEC SDS?
Our process allows district MIS to be involved as little or much as they want
When your district joins our program, we will work closely with your existing FOCUS Account Executive (AE) to begin the process of transitioning over to PAEC SDS support. This process will involve our team sitting in on your regular FOCUS AE meetings for a period of time until we have a handle on your existing FOCUS projects and any outstanding issues. Just like FOCUS, we use a Zendesk ticketing system to track all issues districts report. Part of the transition to PAEC SDS involves our team reviewing all of your outstanding FOCUS support tickets and work to get them resolved and adding them to our Zendesk system. Your MIS team will then enter all questions or issues into our Zendesk system. We resolve on average 80% of the tickets we receive and have a very high standard of support that is delivered by our team of FOCUS experts. Any issues we cannot resolve are escalated promptly to FOCUS or FLDOE as appropriate, and you are always copied on those tickets as well. We have developed a systematic process to consistently follow-up on these escalated issues to get our district’s issues resolved in a timely manner. This process allows district MIS to be involved as little or much as they want, but our goal is to get you the answers you need and issues resolved as quickly as possible. All of our districts join together on bi-weekly MIS trainings/meetings and we send out a weekly newsletter to keep everyone informed of any outstanding issues and hot topics.
Can our district just purchase individual services or a training day from PAEC SDS?
We take pride in being an effective resource rather than an as-needed operator
No, at this time we do not offer services “a la carte” or stand alone for districts who have not joined PAEC SDS. Simply put, our resources are a result of the collaboration of our community of districts that share information, questions, and ideas. The support we provide to our districts drives and refines the training we conduct and the technical project we take on. In order to be an effective resource, we need full involvement from each of our participating districts.
