News

San Antonio educational company tapped for TEA contract

San Antonio Business Journal - February 19, 2007

Edvance Research Inc. has won a subcontract on a new initiative to develop a statewide student records-exchange system.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) awarded a three-year contract to the National Transcript Center to develop and deploy a new Texas Records Exchange System, or TREx.

The National Transcript Center, in turn, brought Edvance on board as a subcontractor to provide statewide direct training and customer support on TREx. The value of the contracts were not disclosed.

Through this new system, school districts will be able to request and receive student transcripts and records within seconds instead of the current system, which typically takes weeks of manual copying and mailing.

Some 8,000 public schools in Texas will be able to electronically transfer the records of 4.5 million students. School districts also will have the ability to send Individual Education Programs and Personal Graduation Plans at no cost to the sending or receiving district.

National Transcript Center also has contracted with Avow Systems Inc. that will allow the electronic student records and transcripts to be sent securely through Adobe PDF files.

Private schools and colleges will be able to enroll in TREx for a fee.

The TREx system is slated for a statewide roll-out beginning in the fall of 2007, National Transcript Center President Mark Johnson says.

The National Transcript Center is an Austin-based transcript-exchange service for K-12 schools, state education agencies and colleges and universities.

Edvance is a educational research firm. The company has a five-year contract with the U.S. Department of Education to run the Regional Educational Laboratory-Southwest.

Avow specializes in electronic educational document processing.