In recent communications with DODDS-Pacific/DDESS-Guam employees, I promised to provide our teachers and staff with regular updates concerning the status of SMS and the improvements we are making during this initial start up period.  I hope these updates will serve to highlight changes and benefit everyone as we move forward with the implementation of SMS. I also hope this information will act as a catalyst promoting communication between our office, the district offices, and throughout our 45 schools.  

You need to know that, on the whole, things have improved substantially since the beginning of the school year. In fact, it is hard to keep track of all the changes! In this update, I will focus on only two areas - the health module and Gradebook – but we will address other areas in future updates.   

1.   Health Module: The Pacific Area received an SMS Health Module upgrade Friday, February 3rd, and will be testing this upgrade the week of February 6–10. We expect to install this upgrade on the SMS Production server by February 10. The update contains the following changes to the medication logs:

• The display provides only active students in the selected school (not withdrawn students);
• The medication log has the correct student’s homeroom number and lists students alphabetically by last name;
• The nurse will be able to enter medications with 3 decimal places, such as .125, etc.;
• The upgrade resolves the problem of student daily office visit records randomly not appearing in the Daily Office Visits Log; and
• The immunization information has been imported into SMS from HealthOffice and a report is being created to identify students with missing or noncompliant immunization data. We expect this report to be available within two weeks.

Our nurses will receive training the week of February 13, with part of the agenda focused on implementing SMS.  The functionality of the SMS Health Module has improved tremendously, and I believe we have turned the corner.  Thanks to our school nurses for their continued patience and their extreme professionalism as we worked through the many challenges they faced in the change to SMS.    

2.   SMS Gradebook and SMS Grading.  The Pacific Area Office coordinated with DoDEA headquarters to prepare four training modules regarding the SMS Gradebook. Our office sent schools these training modules to meet the headquarters training timeline: 

• End Quarter 2/Semester 1 using SMS Gradebook or SMS Grading;
• Start Quarter 3 using SMS Gradebook;
• Teachers print Grade Verification Reports at the end of a Quarter/Semester; and
• Save the SMS Gradebook, work at home, and synchronize the gradebook back at school.

Finally, during the Assistant Principals' Conference, January 30 - February 3, we provided participants updates on software improvements concerning attendance, gradebook, the Health Module for nurses, and a variety of changes for counselors.

I wish to express my appreciation to everyone for your commitment and continued patience as we refine and improve these SMS applications.

Nancy C. Bresell
Director, DoDDS-Pacific/DDESS-Guam