Alma

SUMMARY

Alma is a K-12 school management system that brings together school, classroom and student information and tools in one system. 

GOALS

The company aims to simplify the lives of educators by providing easy-to-use features like classroom, curriculum, and lesson planing tools, as well as interfaces and dashboards tailored to different users. Its founders created the company with the goal of improving student education by empowering educators.

APPROACH

Alma offers a step-by-step wizard for administrators when first implementing the product, including the mass import of student, parent, and staff data, as well as course and class setup, and learning targets. 

One implemented, the product offers a number of features for different user groups. Features targeted to administrators include a Student Information System, state reporting, attendance tracking, parent-teacher-administrator communication tools, and school-wide analytics tracking. Features for teachers include curriculum creation, assignment management, gradebook management, parent-student-teacher communication tools, standards alignment and tracking, and report card creation.

Students have their own dashboard interface where they can track assignments and grades, access their school's academic calendar and directory information, and view their attendance history. 

IMPLEMENTATION

Alma is a browser-based tool that requires access to the internet.

PRICING

All of Alma's core services are available free. The company also offers packages that include training and support at differing levels of involvement, ranging from a starter package for $500/year to a platinum package at $30,000/year. In addition, certain one-off features are available as paid add-ons, such as a custom report card maker, priced at $2 per student per year. 

WHO IS USING IT

As of July 2015, approximately 350 schools and 5 districts were using Alma.