It all started in English class when seniors Kagen Jensen and David Camick came up with a brilliant idea. As they discussed the complicated St. Pius X schedules with their peers, it occurred to them that there was an easier way to know that day’s schedule without logging into PowerSchool. They got straight to work, not knowing what their website would become.
Schedule SPX is an all-in-one student dashboard that allows you to see how much time remains in the current class period. In addition to that main feature, teachers and students can access certain tools including links to everyday resources, like the lunch menu, and even change the theme of the website.
“A lot of students don’t know that teachers actually have special features,” said Jensen. “They have game choosers, random number generators, and random name pickers. So we plan to add more of that.”
As soon as the idea came to mind, the guys immediately got the website up and running.
“[We] bought the domain in class, and then the next two weeks we spent tinkering and workshopping until we came out with the first version,” Jensen said. “And then we took a lot of feedback from other people.”
At first, their intention was nothing more than a convenience tool for the two of them to know how long until the class was over. Soon, however, they realized it could benefit all students and staff.
“Nothing crazy like it is now [was our plan],” Camick said. “We kind of figured that other people would want it too, so that’s why I made it public.”
Building a website isn’t an easy task. It takes many hours of dedication, but Jensen and Camick enjoy working on it.
“You kind of get sucked into the project. You’re working, you’re working, you’re working. You get blindsided about other things,” said Jensen.
Camick agreed that it is definitely a laborious job and extremely time-consuming.
“[There] have definitely been a few almost all-nighters,” said Camick.
But in their opinion, it’s worth the hard work from the positive feedback they are receiving.
“We like to see the result and it’s really awesome to see everyone using it,” said Camick.
As for the future, Jensen and Camick plan on keeping the site even after they graduate.
“We have been investing in keeping the site up long term. Right now we are working with underclassmen in order to make sure we have a consistent team of developers,” Jensen said. “After we leave, we plan on handing it over to the school in some capacity.”
While Camick and Jensen enjoy working on their website as a project outside of school, both do not have any intention of making this into a career.
“It’s not really something I want to do in college, it’s mostly just something that I like doing for fun,” said Jensen.
Right now, the guys are working on version 3 of the website and they plan to continue adding updates to benefit its users. Check out spxschedule.com and stay tuned for new features coming soon.
