Since 2006, Focus School Software has centered our product development, services, and company culture around one fundamental concept…improving the educational environment for all stakeholders in a student’s life.
Our Company
About Us
Simply put, our FOCUS is on every user of our solutions, from students and parents to teachers, administrators, counselors, and everyone in between.
- We develop features to simplify daily tasks, improve communication, streamline processes, and guide data informed decisions.
- We have curated a team of 100+ professionals that share a passion for education, many of whom came from educational backgrounds, giving them a true advantage and an understanding of the challenges faced by educators.
- We listen to our clients, respond to their needs, and provide them with personalized service.
This approach has allowed us to increase our product offerings, which now include our flagship K12 Student Information System, CTE/Adult Ed Student Information System, Enterprise Resource Planning System, Assessment System, Before and After-Care Solution, Special Student Services System, Attendance and Tardy Solutions, Community Mobile App, Analytics and Dashboards, and our stand-alone Gradebook and Scheduling Solutions.
We provide this suite of products to both the K-12 and postsecondary educational software marketplace. Our success now includes implementing these solutions in five (5) of the largest districts in the country, three-fourths of the districts in Florida and serving 2,500,000 students across the country in Arizona, California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Washington.
2,500,000
Students Served Across the Country
5
of the Largest Districts in the Country use Focus
3/4
of Florida School Districts use Focus
Our Team
Focus School Software now employs over 100 talented team members, led by our dedicated Executive and Management Teams below. Many of our training and support staff came from school districts that use our Solutions, arming them with first-hand user experience.
Executive Team
Before founding Focus, CEO Andrew Schmadeke worked in software development in the EdTech Industry. Eventually his entrepreneurial spirit and aptitude for learning new technologies rapidly led to the creation of Focus, and a simple start-up became a major player in the SIS market, housing the data of over 2.5 million students to date. In just 16 years, Andrew has grown Focus into a dynamic company of over 100 employees with a suite of products that reflect the inspiration, innovation and collaboration of the entire Focus team and the clients we serve.
Andrew’s commitment and vision to provide cutting-edge technology in comprehensive, customizable data management systems to districts of all sizes continues to fuel Focus’ success and disrupt a competitive market.
As Vice President of Operations, Steven Harnois ensures that the day-to-day operations at Focus run smoothly and efficiently. With an extensive human resources and client management background, Steven oversees and manages all aspects of administration, including Finance, HR / Recruitment, Marketing, Events, IT, Purchasing, Legal, client and vendor contract negotiations, and budgets.
Since 2008, his creativity and leadership in all aspects of Operations have fostered a welcoming environment for employees, helping to shape Focus into the unique and diverse company it is today. Additionally, his ability to develop and maintain strong relationships with clients and third parties (vendors, suppliers, etc.) has ensured success in delivering products and services time and again.
Bethany is passionate about learning, facilitating learning of others, building quality teams and relationships as well as building a quality product, support, services and experience with Focus School Software.
After 18 years of teaching high school mathematics and computer science and seven years at the district level training, supporting and implementing the district student information system Bethany joined the Focus team. Bethany started her Focus career as a project manager implementing districts in Florida, Texas and New Jersey.
For the past 10 years Bethany served as the Director of Implementation overseeing all project teams and implementations, working with the internal team to develop processes and protocols for implementation, overseeing the trainers and their role within implementation and ensuring state reporting compliance by working closely with the state reporting team. Bethany works closely with the Director of Support to ensure smooth transitions from implementation to support.
As the Vice President of Customer Success Bethany integrates herself with Managers, Directors and Team leads to ensure an optimal customer experience from contract signing through implementation and then continued support of the district and its educational needs from Focus
Shannon began her career at Focus School Software in 2009 on our support team where she quickly ascended into project management. In 2014, she was promoted to Director of CTE/Higher Education. Shannon has been responsible for the development and implementation of Focus’s Postsecondary System as well as the Before and Aftercare Solution. Additionally under Shannon’s leadership, Focus School Software has been awarded contracts with some of the largest districts in the nation including Broward County, Miami Dade and LAUSD.
Now serving as VP of Business Development, Shannon is responsible for the strategic development and marketing of new business opportunities across Focus’s suite of solutions. Shannon will provide overall direction and guidance to the business development of Focus with the objective of maximizing growth, and aligning the direction of strategic development of our software. She is responsible for setting and implementing strategies for nationwide business development which allows her to work closely with sales, marketing, support, and product development teams ensuring the constant elevation of the Focus Solution.
Henry Smoot, our Director of Reporting, Integrations, and Database Administration, came to Focus with 15 years of data administration experience from Pinellas County Schools, a local FL district of 108,000 students. There he managed more than 100 databases on 30+ servers and notably helped support the successful migration of the district’s mainframe SIS to SQL Server based system. At Focus, he works closely with Project Coordinators and Managers to ensure hardware configuration continues to meet and exceed client standards. Overseeing a team of programmers with 73+ years of combined experience, Henry is dedicated to adapting and meeting the ever-changing needs of our districts and schools, from researching and implementing the most cutting-edge security measures, to creating and coordinating timely product release schedules.
As Director of Support, Jamie Title has been instrumental in the creation and expansion of the Focus Support team, developing internal processes and innovative strategies to ensure customer service at the highest level to our clients. With a strong background in administration and sales, Jamie’s management, training, and motivation of the Tier 1 Support, Account Executive, and Senior Account Executive teams has produced effective, stream-lined customer service that has resulted in strong, long-term relationships with our districts and schools. In addition, Jamie’s commitment to ensuring our clients understand and utilize the maximum potential of our products and services has grown Focus’ business and helped to shape our software into the customizable, highly intuitive system it is today.
Management Team
Will Brock, our Automation Engineering Manager, is always looking for ways to continually innovate and streamline our IT and service processes for maximum reliability and efficiency within Focus. With his fluency in a variety of programming languages and prior experience developing customized web applications for a prominent insurance company, Will’s vast knowledge and emphasis on collaboration with teammates and end-users helps Focus stay on the cutting-edge of enterprise automation best practices and state-of-the-art workflow.
Bridget joined Focus after 23 years in education, dedicated to serving students with special needs. For 13 years, Bridget worked as the Varying Exceptionalities Specialist and ESE Department Chair for Pinellas County Schools, the 7th largest school district in Florida and the 26th largest in the US. She trained teachers in specialized strategies for teaching special needs students, ESE teachers on writing IEPs, and the district on how to implement district and state policies for serving these students. This experience makes her an invaluable asset to Focus trainers and our Special Student Services development team. She is instrumental in the development of training documentation, guiding the Focus train-the-trainer model, and personally leading trainings for Focus staff and our clients.
Senior System Administrator Peter Gerakios’s previous work in the public and private sector helped give him the experience necessary to lead Focus’ team of System Administrators with management of Focus databases both off premise and in the cloud. With his consistent monitoring and prioritizing of database issues from both clients and Tier 1 & 2 Support staff alike, Peter ensures that all systems at Focus stay up and running and perform at the highest levels. In addition, Peter’s frequent fine-tuning security process and protocols, compiling and testing of disaster recovery scenarios, and creation of new BASH or Python scripts to automate daily tasks make certain our client’s data is managed effectively and safeguarded against any unforeseeable instance.
Sam Hodge, our Feature Enhancement Engineering Manager, has been enhancing Focus to meet the ever-changing needs of our schools and districts for more than 9 years. Sam’s programming background and experience with a variety of system architectures and technologies has been key to his success with product development strategies that continually produce innovative solutions and enforce quality standards. In addition, Sam’s excellent leadership and mentorship of a diverse group of software engineers has been paramount to ensuring the team’s consistent delivery of quality code and features to meet the demands of our constantly evolving Student Information System.
As Tier 2 Engineering Manager, Bob Myers leads our technical support staff in troubleshooting and overcoming technical issues to ensure Focus is functioning at the highest level for our clients. Bob’s proactive approach and passion for building new processes and programs help to provide consistency and accuracy in identifying and resolving emerging issues, as well as facilitate other department’s deeper understanding of the challenges being reported by customers/end users.
With more than 28 years in marketing and sales under his belt, Focus’ PA & Midwest Business Manager Chuck Pickens has a proven track record of successfully building and maintaining relationships with a diverse group of industry leaders, associations and organizations across the K-12 education market. As an Account Executive for almost 20 years at Computer Resources, Chuck helped develop and grow this SIS pioneer’s market throughout the Northeast, fostering long lasting partnerships and communication with districts and schools that helped consistently bring innovation to their MMS and other products. Chuck has brought that same enthusiasm and passion for building relationships to Focus, helping us branch into new markets and engaging customers to think about the possibilities and added value our solutions can bring to their institution.
Quality Assurance Team Lead, Jarrod Porter, supports and manages our team of Software Testers in estimation, planning, and strategy for testing all aspects of Focus and ensuring our system meets the highest standards of function and quality. Jarrod’s experience in test automation has been integral to the creation of repeatable, maintainable, automated testing environments that maximize efficiency and amplify his team’s ability to solve problems and provide invaluable feedback on testing-related tasks. His thorough and detail-oriented approach also makes him an excellent liaison between QA and our development teams, ensuring the solutions developed are aligned with best practices and methodologies and always achieved with client goals in mind.
As a former Actuary & Product Configuration Leader at Banesco Seguros, Adrian Ruiz came to Focus as a natural fit for the Lead Data Specialist role. His exceptional analytical skills and knowledge of integration best practices have been critical to ensuring all data coming from school districts is validated and properly migrated into Focus’ Student Information System. In addition, Adrian’s continued commitment to high standards of data quality and his team-oriented, collaborative approach has contributed to the success of countless implementations.
As Tier 1 Support Manager, Brittany serves as a liaison between all Focus support roles, including Tier 1 and Tier 2 support, Account Executives, Project Coordinators, and our Quality Assurance team, to ensure the timely resolution of issues for both new and current clients. She was a member of the Tier 1 support team for over 5 years, where she gained expertise in Focus platforms, our customer facing Zendesk ticket system, product development, and support processes and procures. She is highly respected by our clients and a well-seasoned team leader.
