With the management system, student records and transcripts can be moved from each school district to the State Office of Education, where officials can take care of federal test-reporting requirements — all under one roof.

The data can also be transferred from district to district. For example, if a student moves to a new district, instead of searching for the manila file folder full of the student's records and then mailing it via "snail mail," school officials can simply send the information electronically.

"There is really no paperwork involved. You have instant access to it," Pitts said.

Education officials can find the data and put it into different forms. For example, they could make a graph showing attendance numbers, based on economic demographics, for northern Utah school districts.

"It allows us to examine data very closely and quickly," said Wasatch School District Superintendent Terry Shoemaker. The district is headed into its second year of using the program. It is paying $3 per student with an enrollment of approximately 4,500.

But how secure is this new system? In the 1980s movies "WarGames" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," teens hack into their school's computer system to increase their grades or decrease their absences.

When asked what would stop kids or others from pulling a similar stunt with DigitalBridge — or just accessing records they shouldn't be viewing — Pitts explained his company's security assurances.

The program requires a password and login. "Someone who is requesting the information has to be authenticated to the system," Pitts said. "We don't just send the information to anybody."

Parents, teachers, administrators and students have different rights to different portions of the data. For example, a principal may have access to personal demographics such as income levels, whereas a student or teacher may not.

"We have done everything that is now standardly available in the industry to encrypt the data and to make sure these records are not penetrated," Pitts said.

If by some chance security was breached, Pitts says DigitalBridge has an audit control so officials know who looked at the information, when and what they saw. "We have warnings that go off that our system has been violated," he said. "We have never had one (hacked into) yet."

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E-MAIL: astewart@desnews.com