Spiro Habash, a Lebanese entrepreneur, was a math teacher at the American Community School in Beirut figuring out ways to run the institution's administration more effectively. While there, he designed a simple database of students and staff names.

Later, ACS became one of the first schools in the country to use the software program, MacSchool. The application, which also has a PC version called WinSchool, digitally produces schedules, report cards and student profiles, among other capabilities.

Since MacSchool is made specifically for educators, its automation is done with a few keystrokes or a click of a mouse, says Amal Baydoun, a technical administrator at ACS's MacSchool office.

"We have two people printing report cards and schedules and one at the registrar's who types in the name of new students each year," Baydoun says. "Can you imagine how many people that eliminates who otherwise would have to perform these tasks?"

Habash, who last month received approval from the software's makers (Canadian based Chancery Software) to distribute the product in Lebanon, has begun his pitch to implement the system in other schools.

In a one-room office tucked away in a quiet alley off of Rue Monot's restaurant row, 37-year-old Habash, and his staff of four, run Clicks, a start-up software consulting company founded in 1997 that specializes in "bridging the gap" between those who have access to the internet and those who don't.

Besides selling the Chancery products, Clicks offers software packages to the pre-Pentium generation of computer users. This suite, called New Deal, lets users with low-end 286, 386 or 486 processors access the internet and a host of programs similar to the Microsoft Office product.

Habash will also be peddling these products to educators from Nov. 15-20 in Hamra at Smith's Info Village on the hunch that many school computers are outdated.

While the two divisions of his company differ, Habash says they share the objective of providing people the technological tools they need. "The country that produces more people on the internet is the country that brings in more money," Habash says. "That's why it's smart to target schools. This is where ideas start."

Next month, Habash will introduce the Chancery programs to government officials and both public and private educators. The program costs $3,000, not including implementation costs, which Habash's company can do in about a year.

Habash says the complete package, implementation and all, will cost the same as a year's salary of one school administrator, and that in the long term it will have schools money by helping them run more efficiently. "Educators should just look at this new program as another employee who is doing a good job," he says. "This would be a very nice employee because instead of keeping the information to himself, he would train the rest of the staff to run more effectively."

Baydoun says before ACS implemented the software in 1994, administrators would spend hours trying to avoid scheduling conflicts.

Teachers and administrators can also access the program from home, as could students if schools chose to provide them with access privileges. ACS hasn't done this yet and doesn't plan to in the near future, but Baydoun says it's a capability she believes the school will eventually implement.

It may take at least five years, but Habash says he believes schools will be able to network with each other, sharing information on students, curriculum and schedules.

The program can also help in the collection of comprehensive school statistical information, currently outdated in some cases and non-existent in others. Chancery software administrators can extrapolate the income level of students, their class ranking and the number of them who go on to higher education. The more the software is used, the more these statistics can be cross-referenced with other schools to develop a nationwide picture of the educational system's health.

These are lofty goals but Habash says he is willing to take the first step with schools as long as they continue working with him. He says this won't happen until administrators realize that regular database and spreadsheet programs don't provide the best solutions for running schools.

"The tools they are using now aren't customized to their needs," Habash says. "Other programs don't have automation. In other words, the streets are there, but they don't tell you where to go."