The best way to get started is to contact us via email so that we can answer any immediate questions you may have. We can usually set up a demo for you or your school district at a convenient time, as well. North Star works best when everyone buys into the vision of what you are trying to achieve. We will work with you to ensure that you have all of the tools necessary to meet that goal.
North Star is priced on a per-student basis. Schools generally prefer this model because you are not penalized for granting access to additional staff and administrators who require access to data. You are only charged for the number of students you track through the system. Please contact us for additional details.
Starting with North Star 4, we will allow you to add up to 10 custom assessments at no extra charge. Additional assessments may be loaded, but there may be an additional fee, depending on complexity.
North Star is different for a variety of reasons. The one that we take the most pride in is that North Star is never “finished”. We are continually working to improve the system and add new features. Over the past few years we have added an Intervention Toolkit, Team Meetings, a Student Dashboard and many other exciting enhancements. In Fall 2015, we will be adding better support for mobile devices, the ability to load custom assessments, new district-level dashboards, district-specific training videos and a host of other new features. North Star is not simply a data warehouse. The data warehouse is simply the foundation that supports all of the value-added functionality that makes North Star special.
Beginning with North Star 4, as long as you can provide your state test data in a tabular (Excel/CSV) format, we should be able to load it into the system. Once the state test data is loaded, you can use the available dimensions on other reports in the system to start to develop insights into how your data correlates.