Debate ensues over how to replace Illuminate Education
By Jadyn Miyahira, Staff Writer
After many years of Samo’s reliance on Illuminate Education, the decision was made to transition to a new platform called the Aeries student information system.
Following the announcement from the CEO of Illuminate, Christine Willig, that it would soon cease to operate their student information system, SMMUSD decided to adopt Aeries. According to principal Antonio Shelton, the district needs to be fully prepared for the switch by June 30, and thereafter, will be completely transitioned for the 2021-2022 school year.
Aeries is a platform made for K-12 education that allows students and guardians to have access to information such as grades, class schedules and transcripts. According to the Aeries website, it constantly adapts its software to the needs of students’ education.
Although the district’s decision to switch to Aeries seems harmless, it has caused some controversy among Samo students, including Finlay Nathan (’22). Upon being informed that SMMUSD has plans to utilize Aeries, Nathan created a petition on change.org urging them to consider coupling Aeries with the Canvas learning management system.
Canvas is a familiar platform to many Samo students who have participated in programs at SMC. Unlike Aeries, Canvas supports K-12 education, higher education and corporate companies with their software. Using this platform, students will not only have access to their grades, but also to things such as announcements, course pages and quizzes.
In Nathan’s petition bio, he explained that the software the district uses is unequipped to serve students and teachers amidst distance learning. This, he reported, has caused students to feel forgotten.
“When I heard that the district had to switch away from Illuminate, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to help solve some of the issues with Samo’s online learning setup,” Nathan said.
At the moment, Nathan expressed, students are submitting work via Google Classroom, reaching out to teachers via Remind and getting quizzed via Google Forms. He argues that Canvas will encapsulate all of those qualities on one platform. By partnering Aeries with Canvas, both will manage different aspects of education.
“It’s important to understand the distinction between Aeries and Canvas to see why they work best when used together. Aeries handles student information for the district, such as attendance and transcripts, whereas Canvas is what students and teachers see on a daily basis. It handles assignments, grades, announcements and scheduling in one place,” Nathan said.
Another student, however, has a strong disagreement with Nathan's argument. According to Emie Malanaphy (’22), Canvas is very hard to navigate and does not have a great user experience.
“I think that Canvas is really messy and outdated. Canvas is hard to log into and from there, hard to follow. It has some issues that need to also be addressed but aren’t and I don’t think [the district] plans on doing that any time soon either,” Malanaphy said.
The district’s decision to leave Illuminate has left dividing opinions among Samo students. Especially because students are experiencing learning virtually, they have reported that SMMUSD’s approach to this switch should be as clean and simple as possible. For some, this means a transfer to multiple softwares; for others, this means something entirely different.
