FARMINGDALE -- The halls of the schools in the Hall-Dale district have been ringing with chatter and laughter for the last month, as students settle into new routines, make new friends and grow accustomed to new teachers.

Likewise, the school district as a whole is also becoming accustomed to something new: a student-support software system the district superintendent is calling "powerful," "beneficial to (the) schools," and "very-user friendly."

The really good news? The database program will be available to all of Maine's school districts for free next year.

Infinite Campus, a software program that tracks and stores student transcripts, grades, assignments, attendance and other personal information in a single system, is in a pilot program at eight school districts throughout the state, including the schools in Hallowell and Farmingdale, said Bill Hurwitch, a project director for the Department of Education's database systems.

Until recently, the state used Maine Education Data Management System -- MEDMS -- to internally manage student information on local, state and federal levels, and for federal reporting purposes. However, the system the state used to manage student information, like attendance, was not compatible with what different school districts used, meaning extra steps had to be taken to send the information to the Department of Education.

"MEDMS was just not well-designed," Hurwitch said. Officials started shopping around for a new system a year ago.

Before the Department of Education made the announcement to school districts they were going to upgrade their database system and offer the district edition of it to schools, Hall-Dale School District Superintendent Donald Siviski said the district was already in the process of purchasing Infinite Campus for themselves.

District officials had heard success stories that schools, districts and state departments in Iowa, California, South Dakota and Georgia had with the student support software and were intrigued.

"This was written for schools by people who work in schools," Siviski said. "It's very user-friendly, easy and powerful," he said.

At Hall-Dale schools, Infinite Campus is online at the high school and will soon be running at the middle and elementary schools, district Director of Communication and Information Technology John Armentrout said.

Before installing Infinite Campus, the Hall-Dale schools operated on three different systems to store their students' information: GradeQuick, Edline and Administrator's Plus. While adequate, using the three different systems was cumbersome, Armentrout said.

"If there's technology infrastructure that keeps teachers from actually teaching, there's no real reason to continue doing it," Armentrout said. "Teachers would take attendance, then export it to give it to the office, where they would have to import it into their records system."

Under Infinite Campus, Armentrout said, taking attendance in class "takes seconds and goes straight to the office."

"We now have all the information for our students on a single database," he said. "Just that alone is a big help for our teachers."

The database went live this school year, Armentrout said. A portal allowing parents access to their child's assignments and grades will also be up and running as early as this week.

Teachers, also, are pleased with the system.

"It's more seamless," Lydia Leimbach said. Leimbach teaches seventh graders at Hall-Dale Middle technology skills, and also assists middle and high school teachers with learning technology integration.

Under the three database systems to store transcripts and take attendance, teachers often found themselves hindered, Leimbach said.

"There was certainly a lot of time spent trying to connect (to the system) for attendance, and you can't send every kid to the office to say 'I'm here,'" she said.

With Infinite Campus, teachers are able to sign into the database, take attendance promptly, and start teaching without anyone having to go to the office, Leimbach said.

Another benefit to using the web-based program, Leimbach said, is that databases with students' grades and information can be stored securely online, rather than a teacher's laptop.

"We aren't dependent on the laptops anymore," she said. "If a teacher's computer were to die, they could go to another machine and be able to access whatever information they need."

Hall-Dale is one of eight districts piloting Infinite Campus. The Biddeford School Department, Sanford School Department, South Portland School Department and Regional School Unit 1, which is made up of Bath, West Bath, Phippsburg, Woolwich and Arrowsic, are also giving the database a try.

Three other districts -- Buxton-based SAD 6, SAD 17, with headquarters in Oxford, and SAD 61, in Bridgton -- started using the program before the state decided that they would be upgrading to Infinite Campus. Hurwitch said those districts would be able to "jump on the state's contract."

Not everyone is jumping on board with the free program, though.

Officials from Maine School Administrative District 51, comprised of North Yarmouth and Cumberland, said they are staying with their current system.

"We just upgraded our system last year and it has been an investment that works for us," David Galin, the district's director of curriculum, said. MSAD 51 stores grades, attendance, and transcripts in a program called Power School.

Galin said should the state decide to make Infinite Campus a mandate, "we'd be ready to be on board with that. But Infinite Campus has the same functionality as Power School, and Power School is working best for us."

Galin said Maine school districts who seek to unify their student databases should consider taking the Department of Education up on its offer of free software.

School districts are allowed to retain their current systems, Hurwitch said.

Meghan V. Malloy -- 623-3811, ext. 431

mmalloy@centralmaine.com