The All-In-One Student Information and Administrative Software Designed Exclusively for New York State BOCES

BOCES Direct - Centris Group - About Us

BOCES Direct provides the capabilities you expect from a student information system, plus advanced features that have been designed exclusively for BOCES. Unlike other systems, BOCES Direct was developed "from the ground up" to meet the needs of one customer – New York State BOCES.

All-In-One Centralized Student Information System

  • Provides a single, fully integrated and comprehensive information system for all BOCES student populations.
  • Stores demographic, schedule, attendance, grade records, and billing information for students attending more than one BOCES Division (e.g., Special Education and Career Tech Education) in one consolidated database.

NYSED Reporting, SIRS Extracts and Administrative Reports

  • Provides all fields required for tracking data needed for SIRS reporting:
    • Able to link multiple teachers to a class and assign a value for each teacher's percent of responsibility.
    • Captures and stores multiple start and end dates for teacher assignments and student enrollments in classes.
    • Records period-level attendance.
  • Produces extracts/verification reports for BOCES SIRS reporting based on state-defined requirements:
    • Student Lite
    • School Entry-Exit
    • Marking Period
    • Location Marking Period
    • Course
    • Staff-Student-Course
    • Student Class Grade Detail
  • Produces the Career Tech Placement Data (follow-up) reports.
  • Produces the SEDCAR-1 and Provider Report of School Age Students Receiving Special Education Services (VR-7 and VR-9).
  • Produces SA-156 State Aid Checklist Report and High Cost STAC Amendment Report (HCSAR).
  • Provides listings generator which allows users to design and produce highly customized ad-hoc lists of all data stored in BOCES Direct.

Billing

  • Web-based billing module provides billing summaries, year-end reports and revenue projection reports. In addition, allows flexibility of billing to districts or billing to another BOCES Division.
  • Smart Calendar recognizes days of the week and actual start and end dates of enrollment, to ensure that billing is always precise and accurate.
  • Perfect FTEs help make certain that a district is never over- or under-billed. Mid-month enrollment changes, changes in services and student movement between districts are no longer a problem.
  • Automated Adjustment Wizard means there's no need to figure out how or when to adjust a district's bill. Our Automated Adjustment Wizard will issue a credit or debit to a district's current month bill based on tracked changes to enrollment activity for dates that may have already billed.
  • Mass Data Entry allows addition of multiple students receiving the same Program/Service with one simple and easy transaction.
  • Withdrawal Wizard provides a simple two-step process for changing a student's billing district or withdrawing a student from a BOCES, with appropriate crediting and debiting to a district's account.
  • Integration with BOCES Direct means never having to track students' IEP and billing information in two unrelated systems.
  • BOCES to BOCES billing makes it easy to bill for services provided to non-component districts within another BOCES service area.
  • Exports to WinCap provide monthly and annualized quantities and amounts; billing data is uploaded to WinCap with a few mouse clicks. Historical billing information maintained within the software.

Enrolling and Scheduling

  • Provides flexibility to add multiple enrollment records simultaneously; roll over enrollment records from one school year to the next; or enroll students individually.
  • Provides the ability to schedule a group of students into a class; schedule students across two school years (i.e., a group of students in year one of a program may be scheduled into year two of the program quickly and easily) or add classes to an individual student's schedule.
  • Provides the ability to customize calendars for each site and for each division within the site; global closings applied to all sites, and individual site closings applied to just that site or division.

Attendance and Grades

  • Allows online entry of attendance and marking period grades by any authorized BOCES staff.
  • Allows entry of Absences, Days Tardy, Early Departures. An attendance type of "Non-Attendance" is also available for those instances when a student is not present, but should not be considered absent (i.e., if his district is closed on a day when the BOCES is open).
  • Allows recording of attendance either by Class or by Class Period for those instances where a teacher is providing instruction in multiple courses during the same class period (i.e., English 9 and English 10).
  • Time in instruction for each class may be defined with a Class Period Start and End Time or by specifying the number of minutes of instruction provided for the class.
  • Provides the ability for each site and division to independently determine grade reporting schedule (quarterly, interim, etc.).
  • Provides a student cumulative record which tracks each student's progress towards meeting graduation requirements.
  • Maintains a history of each student's state assessment data (RCT's, Regents).
  • Provides option to generate attendance reports, report cards, and unofficial transcripts by class/teacher or by district.

BOCES Population Additional Features

  • Tracks all required data for management, administration and reporting of Career Tech programs including:
    • Program Approach - Title II/Tech Prep or General Career Tech Education
    • Program Intensity- Enrollee, Participant, Concentrator
    • Technical Skills Assessments - Written/Performance/Project
    • Internship/Work Based Learning - Contact Information and Type of Experiences
    • Technical Endorsement Recommendation.
    • Special Population Categories
    • Clubs/Organizations (customizable to each BOCES)
    • Forms Returned (customizable to each BOCES)
  • Includes real-time electronic access to district IEPs and 504 Plans for staff through seamless integration with BOCES Direct:
    • Provides view of student's latest IEP or 504 Plan from the Class Roster screen, whether document is shared into the BOCES database or stored remotely in the district database.
    • Eliminates the communications gap between the BOCES and districts by always providing the latest document.
  • Provides extracts/verification reports of select data elements required for district SIRS reporting
    • Program Fact
    • Assessment Fact