Preparing for the Future: Torrance Unified Chooses PowerSchool SIS

Flexibility and State Reporting Adaptability Drives District Success

Challenges 

• Outdated SIS couldn’t meet future needs 
• Not keeping up with state reporting requirement changes 
• Inability to easily customize their SIS to meet district needs

Solution 

• PowerSchool SIS 
• PowerSchool Ecollect Forms 
• PowerSchool Schoology Learning 
• PowerSchool Student Analytics 
• PowerSchool Naviance 

Results 

• Prepared for current and future needs with a flexible, easy-to-use system 
• Expanded functionality with integration between multiple core edtech products  
• Saves time and stress with flexibility and the ability to customize for specific needs
  

Set on the Southern California coast, Torrance Unified School District was saddled with an aging, complex student information system (SIS) that couldn’t meet its future needs. One of the most significant shortcomings was the SIS’s inability to handle constant state reporting changes.  

Top Reasons Torrance Unified School District Chose PowerSchool SIS

“Any SIS change is difficult,” admits Gil Mara, Torrance USD’s Chief Educational Technology and Information Services Officer. He should know, having been through four different student information systems during his 33+ year career.

The district created an RFP to compare multiple SIS vendors, with the top needs being customizability and the ability to keep up with constant CALPADS state reporting requirements. Five SIS vendors responded, and the district compared each product feature-by-feature. While most vendors offered the same basic functionality, what was essential to Torrance USD was someone who could be a true partner—from product functionality and innovations to vision and support—helping fill that role of taking them into the future.

“When looking for solutions,” says Mara, “from a vendor or company to partner with, the relationship part is so key. Once we review the technology on the backend and look under the hood, we know we’re going into a relationship that can be long-term, especially with an SIS. So the longevity of the SIS and company, and the available support are critical. A SIS is a mission-critical system. It’s really important that both the district and vendor understand that and that you’re all on the same page and value the same thing when it comes to educating students.”

Based on its established criteria, Torrance Unified School District chose PowerSchool SIS, part of the Student Information Cloud. PowerSchool SIS is the most widely used K-12 SIS and the first web-based system, launched in 1997.

Mara had used—and trusted—PowerSchool SIS when a previous district had the system some 20 years before. “I knew it was powerful then, and it’s only gotten better. I knew it was a platform that would get us to where we wanted to go,” he says.

How PowerSchool SIS Customizations Save the District Time 

With PowerSchool SIS, Torrance USD gained the ability to customize the student information system, including creating a field for an entire page or program for nearly any need. For example, the district’s language department needed to track specific data for its English Language (EL) program. Mara’s technology department met with the language department to determine needs, then designed an entire EL platform with its own pages, dropdowns, and fields that works specifically for their needs. 

“We were able to deliver a customized platform for our language and development department, and they were extremely happy we were able to pull it off,” says Mara. 

Heidi McQueen, Torrance USD’s Information Technology Manager, says her team has created customizations that have helped make life easier for staff, especially new employees. The simpler the processes are, the easier it is for staff to learn the system.

“We were able to create a lot of different customizations, and that cut down processes at the schools that saved staff a lot of time and training,” she says. “We’re a fairly large district with typical turnover, and it’s not always easy to train new staff. It can be tough to show new hires all the steps, or, if you have an upgrade or new processes, to walk everybody through it. So the more streamlined and simple things are, it just makes things so much easier.” 

The district also customized PowerSchool SIS to improve data accuracy and put more validations in place. “We put customizations in to prevent data entry errors, especially around stored grades and things that benefit students and their transcripts. It’s really important to me that their transcripts are accurate. Rather than having the schools type in their summer grades and make a lot of clerical errors, we take the time to import those in,” says McQueen.

Mara says that customizations within PowerSchool SIS have saved time for staff, including teachers and counselors, so that they can focus more on students. 

“We work to save them some time so that they can just focus on the student without having to say, ‘Someone send me that spreadsheet,’ or ‘Do I have to color code and filter it?’ or ‘Who do I go for this information?’ We’re trying to eliminate islands of data. Having a data system like PowerSchool SIS helps ground out the things we know about our students. Whether it’s the principal, the counselor, or their classroom teacher, they just need more information on their students at their fingertips a lot quicker so they can make good decisions,” Mara says. 

How PowerSchool SIS Addresses Ever-Changing State Reporting

It’s typical for state education departments to make adjustments annually, or throughout the year, with new reporting requirements. One of the most important benefits of PowerSchool SIS is the ability to adapt to changes in CALPADS state reporting for California. PowerSchool SIS integrates with the state’s data system and provides dedicated product and staff support to stay current on compliance requirements.

PowerSchool SIS helps Torrance Unified School District handle CALPADS changes with a dedicated compliance and reporting team, specifically working on California reporting requirements. In addition, PowerSchool SIS streamlines data collection and management, offers real-time data updates and reporting, and customization and compliance tools designed explicitly for CALPADS reporting, including data validation checks, error identification, and automated notifications for missing or incomplete data. 

“To validate information—to be able to research and correlate against different values—is absolutely just the best,” says Eric Lockhart, Torrance USD District Educational Testing Coordinator. “It’s the best thing to be able to have a team that can go through and make adjustments and update things to make them better for parents.”

After switching to PowerSchool SIS, the district changed its attendance verification from a manual, paper-based system to a fully digital one. Its attendance process was certified by auditors so that teachers no longer had to print, sign, and turn in attendance sheets.

“Teachers love the electronic verification of attendance to the state,” says Mara. “It’s saved us hundreds of reams of paper every year because we no longer have to print attendance sheets. The minute teachers submit attendance in PowerSchool SIS, that’s it. It’s certified because of the security built around a teacher’s account.”

Additional Benefits of Integrated PowerSchool Suite of Products

In addition to PowerSchool SIS, Torrance USD has implemented PowerSchool Schoology Learning, PowerSchool Naviance, PowerSchool Ecollect Forms, and PowerSchool Student Analytics. These products offer the district an integrated ecosystem with products for classroom learning, online data collection, data analytics, and college, career, and life readiness (CCLR). With integrated products, SSO, a familiar interface, and secure, shared data, the PowerSchool platform saves staff time, centralizes tasks like instruction and assessment management, enhances collaboration, and enables data-driven instruction.  

“Before PowerSchool, interoperability and integration with other systems weren’t quite there without a lot of extra work,” says Mara. “But moving to PowerSchool products, having that single pane of glass where we could tie into multiple applications is a huge benefit.”

Mara says Schoology, its learning management system, in particular, has been a significant advantage. “Not only do teachers use Schoology, but all of our staff uses it, as all professional development is built out in the product. Our superintendent even uses it for the student leadership academy,” Mara says. “It works well with PowerSchool SIS. You can have assignments in Schoology and grades transition to the SIS gradebook, so teachers don’t have to double enter into a gradebook.” 

The district also uses Ecollect Forms to create, edit, and share online forms with parents and students. The product is built within PowerSchool SIS, so all data collected can flow directly into the primary source of student data.

PowerSchool Analytics & Insights allows the district to easily see student, classroom, and school data from multiple products, including both PowerSchool and non-PowerSchool software. Dashboards enable the district to identify struggling students through attendance, behavior, and coursework data and take efficient steps to get them back on track. 

“[Analytics & Insights] makes it a lot easier to get a quick look at a student profile and all of their associated information so that our administrators and counseling staff can use that information and discuss that with the student,” says Lockhart. 

Mara says a significant benefit of [Analytics & Insights] is that once a data set is created pulling from multiple systems, you can easily share that information with others so that they access only the information they need. 

“This week in an education services meeting,” he says, “our director of accountability and intervention shared links directly to certain areas in [Analytics & Insights] that looked at our homeless population data and special education data. I could click and log in, and it took me right into the data without filtering and searching.” 

Torrance has just started using Naviance, initially helping students submit college applications. Lockhart says he’s excited for students and parents to use Naviance more for college and career readiness. 

“I feel that Naviance is the best opportunity for meeting the goal of having students be college and career ready and offering them information that they can really absorb and be successful with,” says Lockhart.

How PowerSchool is Preparing Torrance USD for the Future

Torrance Unified School District’s decision to partner with PowerSchool has proven to be a game-changer. With an aging and inflexible student information system that couldn’t keep up with state reporting changes, the district needed a new, intuitive, and customizable solution.

PowerSchool SIS not only met those needs but also offered a long-standing partnership built on trust and support. The ability to customize the system saved time for staff and improved data accuracy, while PowerSchool’s dedication to staying current with state reporting changes was invaluable. With the integrated suite of PowerSchool products, Torrance USD now enjoys streamlined processes, data-driven insights, and a bright future for their students. 

Learn more about how PowerSchool SIS can drive more efficient school operations and integrate with your other core edtech products.  

Visit www.PowerSchool.com or call 1-877-873-1550 to learn more.