Aeries SIS review

Aeries SIS is a student information system for US K-12 districts, made by Aeries Software. It covers attendance, scheduling, grade reporting, the teacher grade book, health and discipline records, and state reporting, with portals for teachers, parents and students. Its home market is California. Aeries says about one in two California students use an Aeries product, and more than 750 districts and local education agencies use its software. It also has customers in Texas, where it supports PEIMS submissions.

Who it’s for

Aeries fits California districts first. The system tracks California rules closely, and the CALPADS reporting tools are the main reason many districts pick it. A data director quoted on the Aeries site says the company is often among the first vendors ready when the state changes CALPADS requirements, which matters if you have ever spent a week in May fixing a rejected submission.

It also suits districts that want a mid-sized vendor with a strong user community. Many California county offices and districts already run it, so a new data clerk can often get help from a neighboring district that has solved the same problem.

Districts outside California and Texas should ask for references in their own state before they shortlist it. State reporting is the hardest part of any SIS to get right, and Aeries puts most of its effort where most of its customers are.

What it does well

Reporting and queries are where Aeries earns its reputation. Staff can run queries directly in Aeries to pull a list of students with three or more absences this month, or every ninth grader with a D or F in maths, without waiting for IT to write a report. Aeries Analytics adds dashboards on top of that for principals and district leaders.

The teacher side is straightforward. Teachers take attendance and keep grades in the Teacher Portal, and the help center documents an Aeries Teacher app for taking attendance on a phone or tablet. Aeries also sells JumpRope, a standards-based grade book, for schools that report on standards instead of letter grades.

Online enrollment saves the front office a lot of typing. Families fill in custom forms, upload documents such as proof of address, and enroll several children at once, and staff get notifications as forms arrive. Aeries Enroll Path extends this to the wider enrollment process.

Aeries publishes its release notes and known issues in a public help center, along with an ideas board where customers suggest features. Teams that like to know what is changing before the next release will appreciate that.

Where it falls short

Several things districts expect are separate products. Aeries Communications, the messaging tool, is powered by ParentSquare, and Aeries Payments and the online enrollment tools are listed as their own solutions. Make sure your quote states which of these you are buying, and compare it against running ParentSquare directly if you already use it.

Aeries changed ownership in 2025. CEO Brent Lloyd wrote to customers that Francisco Partners, a technology investment firm, had made a growth investment, and that two members of the founding Lloyd family were retiring. The letter says the company stays family-operated and the leadership team is unchanged. The letter says the money will go into product development. A new investor can also change pricing over time, so ask how renewal prices are set before you sign a multi-year contract.

The help center shows both Aeries Cloud hosting and database administration tools for districts that run their own servers. If you host Aeries yourself, you own patching, backups and security, and that work does not show up in the licence fee.

Pricing

Aeries does not publish prices. Districts contact the sales team for a quote, and add-ons such as communications, payments and analytics cost extra. Ask for a breakdown by product, and include first-year migration and training. Our guide to the total cost of school software explains which costs tend to get left out.

Privacy and data

Aeries’ Privacy Center says student data is private to the school district, that Aeries does not own anything tracked in a district’s system, and that it does not share information with advertisers or marketers. It says Aeries complies with FERPA, COPPA, HIPAA, SOPIPA and California Education Code 49073.1, the state law that sets the terms for contracts that handle student records. Aeries runs a responsible disclosure program for security researchers.

The public pages do not name security certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001, or say where Aeries Cloud is hosted. Ask for both in writing during procurement, along with a signed data privacy agreement. Our student data privacy checklist lists the other questions to ask.

Verdict

Aeries is a strong choice for California districts that care most about state reporting, flexible queries and a vendor that knows how California schools work. Get a quote that names every add-on, and ask about security audits and hosting in writing. Districts in other states should compare it with PowerSchool SIS or Infinite Campus, which have more experience with their state’s reporting.

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