Soft suit

The San Diego County Office of Education has sued a Minnesota software firm for failing to produce a working “Student Information System” that it had promised to provide by January 2007. According to a breach of contract complaint filed in federal court here on November 12 of last year, the office entered into a November 2006 agreement with Infinite Campus of Blaine, Minnesota, to furnish software and technical support for a system that would manage student records for a host of school districts. Those included 26 in San Diego County, 12 in Imperial, 2 in Orange, and 22 charter schools, along with the County’s own juvenile court and community schools. But the complaint alleges that the system delivered by Infinite had a host of bugs that the company repeatedly promised to fix but never did and that it lacked features such as discipline-reporting and grade-reporting modules. Throughout 2007, according to the suit, “The county was lulled into waiting for a workable system to support its needs,” until Infinite terminated the agreement in April of last year. “As a result of Infinite Campus’ failure to create the system required by the RFP [request for proposal], the county was left without alternative but to resume a prior method to comply with State Reporting Requirements at great expense to the county.” The complaint does not specify specific monetary damages but says they likely exceed $75,000. In a response filed with the court on Tuesday, Infinite denied the board’s allegations and counter-claimed that the office of education “prevented Infinite Campus from working with most of its member school districts to fulfill its reporting requirements.” The firm also says that nine school districts in the county continue to use its software “without proper payment,” resulting in the “unjust enrichment” of the county board and the school districts. The company is seeking $259,812 in damages. Reached last week, a spokesman for the office of education said he had not heard of the case and would “look into” it, but had not called back by press time.