MOORPARK : New Software OKd for School District

Office staff members at Moorpark Union High School have a longstanding joke that their computer system is haunted.

The computer would, for instance, independently switch one student’s attendance record with another’s, school officials said. Weekly attendance printouts often showed students absent from class when they were present, fueling disputes between students and teachers.

Last week, the beleaguered school staff applauded the Moorpark Unified School board’s approval of a new computer software program, a reversal of its original position.

The new software, called Student Administrative School Information, is used by about one-third of the school districts statewide, officials said. It will cost about $34,000 over the next two years to install the program at eight schools and at the district office.

Moorpark Union High School Principal Cary Dritz pleaded with the board last week to replace the school district’s obsolete computer software. “The problem is the system is not designed” for a school the size of Moorpark Union High School, Dritz said.

Part of the problem is that the high school’s enrollment had more than doubled in five years, from about 600 students in 1986 to 1,300 this year, Dritz said. Over the same period of time, the number of students at Chaparral Middle School has increased from about 750 to 1,250.

The computer program, designed for a smaller school system, has bogged down.

Initially, the school board refused to purchase a new computer program, with board members saying they could not justify purchasing computers in a year when they have cut student programs.

But school officials argued that the computer program would pay for itself by keeping accurate attendance records. The state allocates money to schools based on average daily attendance.

School officials also said staff time was wasted fooling with the quirky computer program. “You’ve only discussed dollars,” Dritz told the board. “Another resource is people and time.”