Pilot SIMS Expansion Project Open; Statewide Collection in October

To:Superintendents and Charter School Leaders
From:Mitchell D. Chester, Ed.D.
Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary Education
Date:March 24, 2010
The Department's pilot data collection initiative for the Student Information Management System (SIMS) Expansion Project has begun. This project expands the current SIMS collection to include a Student Course Schedule (SCS) file and requires two additional Educator Personnel Information Management (EPIMS) collections beginning in the 2010/2011 school year. With this expanded system, teacher and student information can be linked to answer questions related to program and teacher effectiveness. Of the 120 districts who volunteered to participate in the pilot data collection initiative, we selected 75 to complete the March and June collections. Please remember that the deadline for submitting the new Student Course Schedule (SCS) data is April 15th. The statewide release for this new data collection initiative begins October 1, 2010. This critical data collection initiative-both the current pilot and statewide release in October- for the first time links the Student Information Management System (SIMS) to the Educator Personnel Information Management System (EPIMS). These systems gather vital student enrollment and staff employment information used to calculate each district's and charter school's local and federal funding levels, MCAS and Accountability reporting along with the highly qualified teacher statistics. The linked SIMS and EPIMS systems provide the Department, districts, and schools with the important analytical capability to identify and analyze effective programs in our schools. We are grateful to the districts who volunteered to participate in the pilot data collection. Through your help, we anticipate the statewide collection in October will be far more manageable and "district friendly." If you have any questions, please contact the Data Collection Office at 781-338-3282 or ESEDataCollect@doe.mass.edu.



Last Updated: March 26, 2010



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