DPI says data‑migration problems threaten summer go‑live for Infinite Campus; supplemental vendor brought in

The Budget Section received a detailed update from the Department of Public Instruction on the statewide Infinite Campus student-information implementation and data-migration progress.

Tony Ambrose, executive lead for the project, said district implementation work is ongoing and user-acceptance testing is about to begin at the state level, but data migration from each district’s PowerSchool instance has been problematic. He said many districts have local customizations to PowerSchool that complicate extracting and transforming district data for Infinite Campus and that the vendor DPI procured “is simply not performing up to the level that we expect.”

Ambrose said DPI is procuring supplemental assistance from a vendor that led similar migrations in North Carolina and expects that the additional resource will help the project get back on track. He also said DPI has contingency plans, is finalizing data-sharing agreements and is working with NDIT on identity and authorization for the new system.

Members pressed DPI on costs: Representative Murphy asked whether the state is paying twice for migration help (original vendor then supplemental) and requested figures; Ambrose said Infinite Campus is responsible for ingestion once data is in the correct format and that DPI will provide cost details when contractual work is finalized. Representative Caponeck asked whether implementation can be phased by district; Ambrose said the state is aiming for a summer go‑live for the statewide implementation because PowerSchool vendor funding ends June 30, but DPI has contingency planning if needed.

Ambrose acknowledged that larger districts with IT staff are progressing more quickly while smaller districts may require more hands‑on support; DPI said it expects to continue outreach and to provide practical guidance to those districts.