– St. Mary’s South Side Catholic High School
– St. Louis, Missouri
– Grade levels: 9–12
– Student count: 230
OVERVIEW
St. Mary’s South Side Catholic High School has been serving families for generations, with roots reaching back to 1931. Over time, the school’s programs and expectations expanded, and so did the demands on the systems behind the scenes. St. Mary’s leaders wanted operations that matched the reality of modern schooling: clear, accessible information for families, efficient workflows for staff, and grading that reflects how teachers actually assess learning.
Their legacy setup (Blackbaud) was not keeping up. Standards-based grading was central to how St. Mary’s teaches, yet the school’s primary database system could not support it. That gap forced staff to stitch together multiple platforms, creating extra work for teachers and making it increasingly harder for families to stay connected.
When the standards-based grading tool St. Mary’s relied on stopped being available, the school began searching for a single system that could handle grading and serve as the operational home base for attendance, reporting, and day-to-day communication.
WHAT MADE THE SWITCH WORTH IT
St. Mary’s first adopted Alma for grading while keeping Blackbaud as the database. That side-by-side year became the turning point. Director of Operations Kate Harden said the comparison made the decision straightforward.
“We used Alma for grading for a year while keeping Blackbaud as our database,” Harden said. “Seeing them side by side, it became obvious we should do everything in Alma.”
Beyond standards-based grading, the team prioritized usability. Harden described Alma as a cloud-built platform that felt intuitive for teachers and clean enough to support quick daily work. For families, the benefit was simpler access to the information they care about, without hopping between portals.
“It takes about 90 seconds. It used to take three hours.””
– Kate Harden, Director of Operations
RESULTS THAT SHOWED UP IN THE DAILY ROUTINE
The most immediate gains were time-based. Once St. Mary’s consolidated into Alma, repetitive workflows started taking minutes instead of hours.
Attendance outreach became the clearest example. Harden said the attendance coordinator can send the batch of absent-no-excuse notifications quickly after morning attendance is taken.
“It takes about 90 seconds,” Harden said. “It used to take three hours.”
St. Mary’s also leaned on bulk actions to handle groups of attendance updates consistently, which helped staff move through high-volume tasks with fewer steps and fewer manual follow-ups.
ENGAGEMENT IMPROVED WHEN EVERYTHING LIVED IN ONE PLACE
During the year St. Mary’s asked families and students to use two systems, the experience was fragmented. Attendance lived in one place and grades lived in another. Harden said that complexity became a real barrier for families.
“That was incredibly complicated for parents,” Harden said.
After the school moved to a single platform, engagement improved because families and students could check attendance and grades in one place. St. Mary’s also saw student usage increase through activities and graduation progress tracking, creating more reasons for students to log in regularly.
STANDARDS-BASED GRADING THAT MATCHED HOW THEY TEACH
St. Mary’s has used standards-based grading long before it became common, and the school relies on standards created by its own staff. Alma’s flexibility allowed St. Mary’s to keep that approach intact and refine it over time, without reworking the underlying model each year.
“We’ve codified our own standards,” Harden said. “Alma lets us add and edit those standards in any subject.”
Teachers benefited from a gradebook flow that supported moving from standard to standard without friction. For families, the standards-based view provided more detail about where a student is progressing and where support may be needed.
REPORTING AND PUBLISHING WITHOUT THE SHUFFLE
Reporting and publishing also became faster once grading, report cards, and family communication lived in the same system. In the past, St. Mary’s had to move information between tools to publish official records. In Alma, the school can publish progress reports and report cards at scale and notify families through a streamlined workflow.
“You can publish them all and send one message to families,” Harden said.
That shift reduced the time and risk that comes with exporting, transferring, and rebuilding reporting outputs across systems.
OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE THROUGH EMERGENCY INTEGRATION
St. Mary’s also needed its emergency communications platform, Ruvna, to stay synced with attendance. The school used an existing integration in its prior system and needed that same reliability after switching.
Harden said the school worked with Alma and the vendor to create an integration that updates attendance every 15 minutes, providing a reliable real-time view of who is in the building during drills or emergencies.
“We always know who’s in the building,” Harden said.
THEIR ADVICE TO SCHOOLS CONSIDERING A SWITCH
“Go slow. Attend a user group or webinar. Work the onboarding checklist.” Harden said. “With many small steps, the large task of migrating to a new system becomes manageable.”
With Alma handling the heavy lifting, St. Mary’s replaced a patchwork of tools with one reliable system. Attendance outreach that once took three hours now takes about 90 seconds, reporting and publishing are faster, and families and students are more engaged because everything lives in one place. Harden said the efficiency gains have helped staff spend less time managing systems and more time supporting students.
