One of the key themes I heard when I visited schools in our post-pandemic era was that parents were complaining.

And I’ll bet they still are.

They’re not necessarily complaining about the cost of tuition, or the non-responsiveness of school personnel, nor the amount of fundraising that they’re expected to do – although those are well-known themes.

Now they’re complaining about having to remember 8 different logins and passwords to all the technological systems the school uses.  “Can’t there be just one place where we log in for everything?”‘

You’re probably thinking that the Student Information System your school uses integrates with the admissions software it uses.  And that may be true – but the key is “how” – as in “how” do the systems integrate.

In asking this questions to one school leader, they said that they can export data from their admissions software and upload it into their student information system.

Another school leader said that parents can sign on to the student information system and the tuition payment platform with the same credentials, but they have to change the addresses or email addresses manually in both systems.

The fact is that there is no “complete” system in the marketplace.  Many providers say their system is complete, but there’s a component that’s missing (like a financial need assessment tool) that may not connect.

While it may be that your school chooses to use “Best of Brand” solutions, there are several things you need to remember:

1. As soon as data is exported from one system and then imported into another, it is no longer secure.  A system that is FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) compliant will keep all the PII (Personally Identifiable Information) within the platform.  It should also be noted that that private schools didn’t pay much attention to this law – until they realized that “publicly-funded” doesn’t mean just funded by taxes.  Publicly-funded may be interpreted to mean “funded by the public” rather than just from something like a privately held and administered fund.  If your school is charging tuition, your school is funded by the public.
2. It’s no longer common to have just usernames and passwords.  Many solutions are now requiring the use of multi-factor authentication – such as a number texted to a mobile device or emailed to the user’s registered email.  Today, however, multiple passwords may not be such a troublesome issue since computer browsers can store passwords and mobile devices will also provide saved login credentials so that programs can be accessed by face recognition options.
3. There are custom apps available to your school, so that your Website becomes a tool for engaging parents of prospective students, and your school’s app becomes the “go to” place for your parent community.

Here’s the bottom line:  If parents are looking for convenience, you can do your best to honor those requests regarding the solutions you’re using for your school.  Connecting them through APIs or a FERPA compliant platform can even provide actionable data insights for your planning.

But there’s something even more important than convenience – and that’s security.  When it comes to choosing between convenience and security, security wins every time.