Abstract—School have different departments and offices with interrelated functionalities that needs one’s cooperation in order to function well. Offices are scattered across the campus and transfer of information is affected. The need to build an integrated School Management System using a centralized database will make school services of better quality. The need to integrate technologies like barcodes, use of internet, video cameras, sensors and the use of a better framework are needed to cope up with the changing needs of the society and in providing quality school service. Thus this study aimed to build such system, implement the system and identify the level of acceptability. Features of the system include enrollment, assessment, report generation and providing decision support module. The system is based from a standardized school management framework derived from different existing school management systems. This is under qualitative as well as descriptive research. Agile AWE model is used in the project development. This is implemented in an institution that uses manual process of school management. Manager, staff, teachers, students and guardian will provide the needed system requirements and at the same time they will be the respondents in getting the level of acceptability. Feedbacks are continuously gathered and helps identify possible improvements. This system is beneficial to institutions currently using manual process in their departments. This is a fully functional and configurable system that will suit to the needs and surely provide quality service. Index Terms—School management system, centralized database. I. INTRODUCTION School Management System (SMS) is an information and data processing system that consist of integrated sub-systems for managers, teachers, staff, guardians and students. SMS aims to help school management to improve all the services provided by the school. The adaptation of technologies as well as improving features of SMS will continue to carry on, as the needs of people concern in the services of the institution continuously changing. Faster and convenient service using different platforms is of primary concern [1]. Schools using standalone applications in different offices are not sufficient anymore to provide quality services. It limits the capability of users providing output slowly and of low standards [2]. Other schools are still using manual process. The growing number of clients affects already the services provided by Manuscript received January 13, 2020; revised April 7, 2020. R. E. Balcita is with the Northern Philippines College for Maritime, Science and Technology, Brgy. Lingsat, San Fernando City, La Union, Philippines (e-mail: romeo_balcita@yahoo.com). T. D. Palaoag is with the University of the Cordilleras, College of Information Technology, Baguio City, Philippines (e-mail: tpalaoag@gmail.com). workers. Client’s records needs to be checked and updated from time to time now but they are doing this by manual searching and writing. Transactions are very slow, records errors are greater, miscommunications can happen anytime, error in computations, mishandling of data, slow production of reports and performance of employees are not that satisfying. This will result to student’s perception that the school is of low quality in all aspect of its services [3]. School managers are the head of the institution. They need to analyze lots of data in order to come up with decision making. Major success of the school lies on them. Providing them tools that helps them in their decision making is very essential nowadays. They need decision support systems to provide a quality service that satisfies clients. Some are no yet familiar how powerful information technology is. They use computers but not as efficient as the computer can provide [4]. They use standalone applications that provide similar result of that of manual process. Other school managers that tried using SMS verify that their productivity and performance improves beyond their expectations. A complete SMS provide all their needed information necessary in their decision making process. Computerized information systems have been developed and applied in schools throughout the world, and shows significant improvement especially in the decision-making process. But an incomplete SMS will not provide the most efficient service. Incomplete SMS lacks other modules. It contains the key components but other offices are not integrated due to prioritizing components. An incomplete SMS have problems like less integration of office services [5]. Some reports are still manually prepared. Human errors are greater and still time consuming for other manual processes. Thus, the aim of this study is to integrate SMS using a centralized database. The need to use a carefully analyzed framework must be considered to improve the performance of SMS. This study will also identify SMS features, build the SMS, identify technology needed and incorporate it, implement and verify the level of acceptability of the system. II. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK Building a School Management System (SMS) needs strong foundation like finding the right components and analyzing existing frameworks for improvement [6]. The need to adapt to the latest trends in Information Technology (IT) will help improve the quality of education and handling various activities of the school. The use of technology changed the quality of education for the better [7]. It makes procedures and systems, better integrate with factions, departments and various stakeholders. Productivity and performance are enhanced, maximizing employee’s Integration of School Management Systems Using a Centralized Database (ISMSCD) Romeo E. Balcita and Thelma D. Palaoag International Journal of Information and Education Technology, Vol. 10, No. 9, September 2020 704 doi: 10.18178/ijiet.2020.10.9.1446