SchoolComms and "Sex" vs "Gender Identity"

[Jawloms]

We used SchoolComms to send an email out to a load of parents of students who are in a school production. In SIMS .net one of the students involved in the production has their "Sex" recorded as "Female", their "Gender Identity" as "Boy", and their "Pronouns" as "He / Him / His / His / Himself". When the email has gone out, it referred to the student as "she". We queried this with SchoolComms who suggested we simply change the "Sex" field, but that is incorrect as it has to be their currently recognised sex legally doesn't it, and would therefore make the census incorrect. They then said it's because it pulls the data from the "Sex" field and closed the ticket. We re-opened it and said it shouldn't do that in order to remain DfE compliant, and they closed it again saying "Have confirmed which fields data is pulled from".

 

Surely we aren't the first school in the country this has happened to? Are we doing something wrong that we need to change? We are in the process of switching from SIMS .net to Arbor for our MIS. Will SchoolComms still behave like this after the migration?

 

Thank you

 

Stuart

[sysadmindotps1]

This reads like every interaction I have with SIMS/ESS/ParentPay support.

[SIMS_Customer_Support]

23 minutes ago, Jawloms said:

We used SchoolComms to send an email out to a load of parents of students who are in a school production. In SIMS .net one of the students involved in the production has their "Sex" recorded as "Female", their "Gender Identity" as "Boy", and their "Pronouns" as "He / Him / His / His / Himself". When the email has gone out, it referred to the student as "she". We queried this with SchoolComms who suggested we simply change the "Sex" field, but that is incorrect as it has to be their currently recognised sex legally doesn't it, and would therefore make the census incorrect. They then said it's because it pulls the data from the "Sex" field and closed the ticket. We re-opened it and said it shouldn't do that in order to remain DfE compliant, and they closed it again saying "Have confirmed which fields data is pulled from".

 

Surely we aren't the first school in the country this has happened to? Are we doing something wrong that we need to change? We are in the process of switching from SIMS .net to Arbor for our MIS. Will SchoolComms still behave like this after the migration?

 

Thank you

 

Stuart

Thank you for your message @Jawloms I have sent you a direct message.

 

With thanks,

Sally

[Jawloms]

Following on from contact from @SIMS_Customer_Support, the ticket was followed up again very quickly by the helpdesk. They re-iterated again that they just use the "sex" field and "it is not possible for us to change which fields in SIMS Schoolcomms pulls the data from" and we could add this feature to the "Wishlist". I have gone back directly to @SIMS_Customer_Support again with;

 

Quote

Which to me confirms that you as an organisation ignore the wishes of the student/their guardians to use their gender identity? I fully understand that in a legal document, the legal "sex" must be used, but in a communication about a student being in a school production surely their gender identity could be used? In today's world, I don't see that this should be a "wishlist" item, but a standard field which can be chosen.

 

and now I am not getting any response after nearly 24 hours. Are we really the first school to have this?

[Jawloms]

Ticket now updated by a senior team leader saying they are actively looking in to the issue and the work required......

[bobsmith]

I had to do a double check before getting myself all confused.

 

So Schoolcomms was originally a third party system right? And ParentPay have bought them up.

 

ParentPay also bought up SIMS - SIMS natively has intouch as their communication package which is fully integrated (as far as SIMS does integration....)

 

Does schoolcomms still get it's data from a third party connector service like Wonde or Groupcall?

 

Is the confusion that although they are all owned by the same parent company that this communication between them is not very good?

[Jawloms]

The whole of ParentPay seems a bit of a joke if I'm honest. We are currently moving away from SIMS .net to Arbor. We've contacted everyone that pulls data out of SIMS and asked them to switch and they've all gone "Yeah, that's fine" and it's done. ParentPay though are charging £600 for the privilege. When I challenged them on the cost they said it isn't as easy as it sounds to do, they've had to set up a dedicated team to do it, it needs to be done to a very high standard, and they've got a lot of people moving away from SIMS at the moment so it's a very high workload.

 

I didn't think it sounded easy, all the other companies have done it to a high standard, and should you be telling a customer that you've got a lot of people moving away from one of your other products? Plus, if SIMS could possibly be dragged in to the 21st century, the support was any good, and they weren't so money grabbing, you probably wouldn't have a lot of people moving away from it? People should be with it because it's an attractive product, not because you binding them in to contracts for as long as you possibly can so meaning they can't move away.

 

Anyway - to answer your question..... SchoolComms talks directly to SIMS.

[DrCheese]

38 minutes ago, Jawloms said:

The whole of ParentPay seems a bit of a joke if I'm honest. We are currently moving away from SIMS .net to Arbor. We've contacted everyone that pulls data out of SIMS and asked them to switch and they've all gone "Yeah, that's fine" and it's done. ParentPay though are charging £600 for the privilege. When I challenged them on the cost they said it isn't as easy as it sounds to do, they've had to set up a dedicated team to do it, it needs to be done to a very high standard, and they've got a lot of people moving away from SIMS at the moment so it's a very high workload.

 

I.. begruglingly accept the £600, but trying to get this actually booked in with them is proving a massive headache. Like you say, everyone else has been fairly straight forward. Parentpay on the other hand, is takes ages to get anywhere. 

[Boredguy]

1 hour ago, bobsmith said:

Does schoolcomms still get it's data from a third party connector service like Wonde or Groupcall?

When you launch the very old looking client, it will try prompt to do a sync with SIMS so as to update the information, but appears to be the only way it synchronises.  Would be easier if it was via Wonde as at least it the web version could then always be used.

Edited March 16 by Boredguy

[bobsmith]

if you're dumping sims then aren't you dumping schoolcomms too - since it's owned by the same people?

 

if so you wouldn't need to hand over money for the migration.

[Jawloms]

Sadly not yet......

[AlistairB1983]

30 minutes ago, Jawloms said:

Sadly not yet......

 

What are they planning to use SchoolComms for that Arbor itself can't already do?

[BKGarry]

Sometimes it is not worth changing all the add-on systems at one, we kept Edulink for a year, until we got staff confident in Arbor and then moved over to Arbor's Parent and Student app for homework and communications etc.

[Jawloms]

26 minutes ago, AlistairB1983 said:

 

What are they planning to use SchoolComms for that Arbor itself can't already do?

 

Nothing, but like @BKGarry says, we're just not switching everything all at once.

[Devaleth]

Jawloms - my suggestion in the interim would be to have the school consider shifting their language into a neutral style (child instead of boy/girl, they instead of he/she) where inserting the child's name would be inappropriate.