Gradebook

Hi,

I like Moodle Gradebook, but that's just what it is (only) a gradebook. Grades are a small part of what a working classroom teacher must track.

I am looking for a Teacher's Information Management System (see below). Are you also looking for the same type of system? Are other people trying to get such a system into Moodle? I'm quite surprised that there is such a gap (looking to be filled) between the gradebook and the school-management-package.

I would like a more complete database, a Teacher's Information System which includes tables such as:
key school staff (with contact information)
homerooms (and homeroom teachers)
learning disabilities (and accomodations)
parent/guardian
family (I saw a students/guardians/families done with CiviCRM)

This would be a database with a number of one to many relationships, and even some (ugh) many to many relationships:
one homeroom to many students
one student to many courses
one family to many students
one family to many parents/guardians
one student to many learning disabilities
etc.

My biggest focus would be on a teacher who teaches at two or more schools, or a Subject coordinator such as the head math teacher who must track 5 or 6 teachers, and their students. I would limit the information to one academic year.

So far I've found online gradebooks (e.g. Moodle Gradebook) or very large programs used to manage an entire school (e.g. http://www.renweb.com/). The schools I work in use such programs but usually they are for management only, not for teachers. We just submit grades. Teacher's P.E.T. is pretty good but not good enough.

I've tried building this in Access, but did not succeed. I'm learning PHP and MySQL now, but still it may be beyond my ability.

Tom