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2026/2027 School Year Calendar for Independent Schools in Canada
Bring key dates into your school’s planning with our 2026/2027 school year calendar for independent schools in Canada, covering holidays, community observances, and provincial reporting deadlines.
Product Update: Introducing the MySchool Diploma Module
Set your school’s graduation requirements in MySchool and track each student’s progress against them.
Inside School Operations: Deb Hughes on Systems, Teamwork, and Process Enhancement
Behind The Scenes: School Leadership is a series of conversations with the people who run independent schools. Admissions directors, admins, and principals describe how their work is actually organised and where it gets difficult. We share those first-hand perspectives so other school leaders can see how the job gets done elsewhere.
What Is an IEP? A Guide to IEP Software for Canadian Independent Schools
An IEP turns a student’s strengths and learning needs into a shared plan for support. Learn what goes into an IEP, how schools manage progress and reporting, and what to look for in IEP software.
Why Schools Stay With School Management Systems They’ve Outgrown
From years of investment to concerns about migration, explore four reasons schools keep systems they’ve outgrown—and the questions worth asking about each.
Fix the Process or Replace the School Management System? How to Tell Which Problem You Have
Before you retrain the team or start shopping for new software, find out where the extra work actually begins. Learn how to test whether better ownership, training, and process design will solve the issue — or whether the limitation sits in the system itself.
School Administration Software: Tools for Independent Schools
Canadian independent school administrators juggle dozens of tasks every day. This guide highlights 11 tools that can make that work simpler, faster, and easier to manage.
The First 30 Days Back: Where School Operations Start to Crack
The first 30 days back show you how your school’s operations really hold up under pressure. This post helps you separate normal start-of-year friction from operational issues that followed you from last year.
Product Update: Introducing the MySchool API
MySchool data will be readable and writable by the other systems your school runs.
Seven Things To Handle In September: A Head of School Checklist
A lot of what feels urgent in October is work that needed to start in September. This seven-point checklist helps Heads of School look ahead, catch what needs attention now, and make the school year easier to manage.
Three Conversations Every Head of School Should Have Before the New School Year
Before the new school year takes over, there is still time to look closely at what last year exposed. These three conversations help you capture what broke, what it cost, and what deserves attention this year.
How to Choose a Student Information System for a Canadian Independent School
Choosing a student information system is a decision your school lives with for years. This guide covers what to examine before you commit to a vendor.
The Hidden Costs of Fragmented Systems: What Your Workarounds Are Really Costing You
Licence fees and overtime are the costs you can see. The bigger half never reaches a budget line at all. This post walks through where the hidden costs of fragmented systems sit, and how to put a rough figure on them before September starts.
Inside the Admissions Journey: Christina Ullyot on Community, Strategy, and Doing Things Well
Behind The Scenes: School Leadership is a series of conversations with the people who run independent schools. Admissions directors, admins, and principals describe how their work is actually organised and where it gets difficult. We share those first-hand perspectives so other school leaders can see how the job gets done elsewhere.
What Are Learning Management Systems (LMS)? A Guide for K-12 Schools
Teachers already deliver coursework, collect it, mark it, and record progress. The question is how much of that happens in one place. This guide explains what an LMS covers, what it changes for staff and families, and what to ask vendors before you commit.
5 Signs Your School Ran on Heroics (Not Systems) This Year
Board reports that take days, decisions made from memory, near misses caught by luck? Read this article to check if your school ran on heroics, instead of systems, this year.
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Don't Waste a Hard Year: What 2025/26 Can Teach You About Your School's Operations
The hardest year your school has had is also the most accurate operational data it will ever collect. This post explains why writing down where your systems cracked, while your team still remembers, is the one thing worth doing before the summer ends.
Survive or Thrive: How Did Your School Really Do This Year? (Quiz)
Your school made it through 2025/26. But how much of that success depended on clear systems, and how much on manual workarounds, memory, and overstretched staff? Take this short quiz to see where your school is.
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3 School IT Manager Problems MySchool Solves [2026 Update]
An experienced IT director who's spent decades running systems for independent schools identifies the structural problems that consume most IT managers' time and explains how MySchool addresses them.
Student Information System: A Short Guide for K-12 Independent Schools
Schools without a student information system still pay for one. The cost just hides in staff hours spent reconciling spreadsheets, re-entering data, and chasing down the current version of a record. This guide looks at where that time goes, and what an SIS gives back.
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Why Independent Schools Need Business-Grade Operations (Without Losing Their Soul)
Running a school like a business sounds corporate, but true operational efficiency doesn’t dilute your mission - it protects it. This guide explores how a unified operating model provides the structural strength to help your unique culture hold under pressure.
OnSIS Compliance: Ontario School Information System Guide
OnSIS reporting can feel technical, but it starts with something simple: accurate school data. This guide explains what Ontario independent schools need to report, when submissions happen, and what privacy and compliance principles schools should keep in mind.
School Management Software: All-in-Many vs All-in-One
All-in-many or all-in-one? It sounds like a question about tools. In practice, it's a question about how much effort it takes to keep your school running. Read to learn what each model looks like from the inside.
MySchool vs. Blackbaud: How to Choose the Best School Management Platform in 2026
Choosing a school management platform looks like a technical decision. In reality, it’s an operational one. The right system can make daily work feel simpler and more connected. The wrong one can add friction at every step.
The ERP for Education: Why Unified School Management Systems Are the Future of K-12 Operations
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence, it’s acting with yesterday’s logic” – Peter Drucker, Austrian-American consultant and educator
Moving a paper-based school to a School Management System
"We have a great system, everything is working just fine so why should we move to a school management system." So why even consider moving? This is a great point but probably the wrong question to be asking yourself. It’s true, your system works just fine… but what is it actually costing you and could you be doing things better and in some cases much, much better? Resources: paper, filing, storage space. Paper, printing, photocopying costs pile up, not to mention the amount of manual upkeep required to maintain up to date accurate records. It’s hard to find official statistics on paper consumption by schools but anyone in charge of budgeting in schools will tell the cost of paper, printing and photocopying is significant. While a student information system won’t eliminate everything it certainly will significantly contribute to cutting costs in this area alone, and possibly enough to fund the use of a school management system.
Take Your Enrolment Management System from Stressful to Streamlined With an All-in-One Platform
“They’re heeeerrrre.” The yearly blitz of back-to-school commercials featuring more backpacks, binders, and (spoiler alert) carabiner hand sanitizers than you can shake a stick at, seems to be the international sign to turn in your flip-flops and start setting your alarm clock again.
5 Ways to Tell if Your School Management System is Future-Proof
In a world with increasing dependence on technology, it’s essential that your school MIS is future-proof, aka sustainable.