News and announcements
SchoolTool 2.6 Released!
Written for SchoolTool Project by Tom Hoffman on 2013-10-14
The latest SchoolTool release focuses on background processing of long-running tasks, improved report design, differentiated administrative roles and views, and many other enhancement and fixes throughout the application.
SchoolTool 2.6 is available in the Ubuntu 13.10 Universe repository, as well as our development PPA for 12.04 LTS and 13.04.
SchoolTool 2.6 Coming Soon!
Written for SchoolTool Project by Tom Hoffman on 2013-09-10
SchoolTool 2.6, to be released by the end of September, is loaded with new features. SchoolTool 2.6 will be available through the Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy) Universe repository as well as for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS through our PPA on Launchpad.
New Features:
* Task Queue:
To allow reports to be generated in the background, without blocking web page response, SchoolTool 2.6 is integrated with the Celery asynchronous task queue (http://
With the task queue architecture in place, future releases will expand its use to allow imports and other long-running processes to take place in the background without blocking or overloading the server.
* Reports:
Printed reports have been updated to a clean, attractive design consistent with SchoolTool's web interface. The layout of SchoolTool's report cards have received particular attention.
Report request dialogs have also been updated for utility and consistency. Realtime feedback on report generation completion is provided in the dialog. For long-running reports, the dialog can be closed, and SchoolTool used normally while the report is being created.
When reports are completed, a message is posted to the user's SchoolTool home page.
* Attendance Journal:
Attendance tracking and participation grading have been made distinct modes in the journal view.
Absences and tardies can be excused by teachers.
Clerks have new school-wide attendance management views to can excuse or enter absences and run reports.
Schools can create and use custom attendance codes.
Participation grading can be based on any SchoolTool score system.
Homeroom attendance status is visible in all section journals for the day.
* Administrative Roles:
Administrative roles have been differentiated to make it easier to prevent accidental destructive changes to the system. "School Administrators" can view most data in the system but have limited editing rights. "Clerks" can enter and view data about students but cannot easily reconfigure the server.
Search forms and read-only views of SchoolTool's gradebooks have been added for administrators.
* Auto-Complete Scoring:
When non-numeric grades are entered in a gradebook cell, an auto-complete menu displays valid possible entries (e.g., the user enters "a" and "A", "A+" and "A-" appear as auto-complete choices).
* Name Order:
All tables and gradebooks should be sortable by first name or last name.
* CanDo:
Improved support for deprecating groups of standards from previous years.
And many bugfixes and small refinements throughout SchoolTool.
SchoolTool Community Map
Written for SchoolTool Project by Tom Hoffman on 2013-05-08
If you're using or supporting SchoolTool as a school, teacher, vendor or other organization, please send us an email so we can add you to our community map. Contact: hoffman@
SchoolTool 2.4 Released
Written for SchoolTool Project by Tom Hoffman on 2013-04-25
SchoolTool 2.4 has been released for Ubuntu 13.04. It is also available for Ubuntu 12.10 and 12.04 LTS from the dev ppa.
New features
* New design of PDF reports
* Ability to render forms and tables to PDF
* Average, total and category weights in report sheets
* Enter scores in gradebook cells of comment activities
* Section roster, person profile, and resources reports
* Three new reports for CanDo
Updated . Read more
SchoolTool & CanDo Feature on opensource.com
Written for SchoolTool Project by Tom Hoffman on 2013-02-20
In 2005, Arlington Career Center teacher David Welsh had an unmanageable list of 77 Video and Media Technology competencies to evaluate for each student in his classes. A Yorktown High School computer science teacher Jeff Elkner was teaching his students to program in Python and bursting with enthusiasm for engaging students and teachers in open source processes. I had a new job leading the SchoolTool project with a charge from entrepreneur and philanthropist Mark Shuttleworth to create open source administrative software for schools around the world.
