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PowerSchool is an administrative application used daily at the school by teachers, secretaries and administrators to manage student records as well as at the home by parents/guardians and students to communicate with teachers and monitor performance in real-time (grades, attendance, homework assignments and more). With an installed base of over 1,000 schools and 22,500 classrooms, PowerSchool already has a dedicated user base of over 1.5 million students, parents, teachers and administrators.In addition to the Student Information System, PowerSchool also provides schools and districts with features that help create an online community around the school. These features include online resources, a safe Web guide from Ask Jeeves, and will soon include classroom and activity Web pages and e-mail.PowerSchool also offers optional features that can help a school generate revenue. If schools are interested, PowerSchool offers a School Fundraising feature and opportunities for sponsorship on the school site. The revenue generated through these features can be used by schools to fund new technology, student scholarships, and other initiatives on campus.PowerSchool recently announced its Application Service Provider (ASP) pricing model with a remote hosting option. Instead of incurring an upfront charge for software, hardware and installations, schools can opt to pay a subscription fee for each student per year. This alternative significantly reduces and stabilizes school IT costs. In many cases, the high cost of buying and maintaining hardware and the challenges of retaining IT employees, an increasingly scarce resource, make systems cost-prohibitive.