Maine Education Data Management System

by Bill Hurwitch, Project Director, DOE

The Maine Educational Data Management System (MEDMS) is a comprehensive central data warehouse designed to collect and report system wide school, staff, student and financial information for the Department of Education. MEDMS Phase 1 includes modules for district and school data (infrastructure), staff data, and student data.

The staff module went online in 2003 and collects demographic data as well as employment and job function data on 45,000 school personnel including 19,000 teachers. All staff personnel are assigned unique six digit identifiers. School unit staff data is collected and updated through web screens. Additional staff data is uploaded nightly into MEDMS from the legacy Certification system.

The student module went online in 2004 and collects personal and enrollment data on over 200,000 students enrolled in Maine schools. Students are assigned a nine digit unique state student identifier (ID) number that follows them throughout their educational career even if they move from school to school within the state or leave the state and return. The student application includes functionality for manual data input through web screens as well as XML or CSV import of student personal and enrollment data from local school student information systems.

MEDMS Phase 1 is a Microsoft.NET application with a SQL Server 2000 back end. The system will be upgraded to SQL 2005 in December 2006.