Educators know that the top goal for any school is academic achievement. But they also know there is an incredible amount of “behind the scenes” work that has to go on as well to make a school successful.  The business side of running a school district involves handling such processes as absence leave requests, purchase order requisitions, teacher evaluations, disciplinary referrals, professional conference requests, and dozens more that administrators must complete each day.

Even though district budgets are being slashed and numbers are being crunched, administrators must still get the work done.  Unfortunately, many school districts are continuing to use paper-based forms to accomplish such work.  School administrators can greatly reduce the time they spend on processing these transactions by simply taking the paper out of the work and making the process electronic.  But, eliminating the paper does not mean a district can do the work more effectively. They also need the ability to make the processes transparent, a way to analyze the data so they can begin making data-driven decisions, and have records management capabilities.

So, where should a district begin?  Any district that is interested in automating its processes should begin by taking the following five steps:

Step 1:
Administrators should first identify and create a small task force of staff members who are involved in processing several of the district’s widely used paper forms. Such individuals could include the Business Manager, Accounting Staff, Superintendent’s Secretary, and any other persons who are involved in the business side of education.

Step 2:
The task force should then identify and collect the district’s most widely used paper forms.  Typically, for most districts, the most widely used are: Teacher Evaluations, Field Trip Requests, Professional Conference, Purchase Order Requests, Absence Leave Requests, Technology Requests, and Expense Reimbursements.  However, the use of these forms could vary from district to district.

Step 3:
Once they have identified the forms, they then need to identify the following:

a. How many times the form is initiated throughout the district on a daily basis. b. How many times the form is moved from person to person and from building to building.
c. How much time, from start to finish, does it take to complete each process.  
d. On average, how many manual errors occur with the handling of the process.
e. The total amount of salaries it takes to initiate, approve, and process each form.

Step 4:
The information gathered from the above steps will then allow the district to gain a better understanding of which processes take the most time and, ultimately, money to handle within the district. Administrators then can take this information to put together a strategic plan to automate these forms, targeting the form that will provide the greatest time savings.

Step 5:
The team should then take the process that is most costly to the district and form a sub-team of individuals who are involved with the process.  That team should then capture the routing the form typically takes as well as the exceptions that can occur with the process.  For example, an exception in routing a Purchase Order request might be when the order is made by a Technology Director on behalf of other staff members who work in various buildings. Who must then approve that request?  The building principal, the superintendent, or both?  Or, what happens if the Purchase Order has been sent, and one of the vendors notifies the district that the ordered item is no longer available? The team should sort through the various scenarios to determine how the form should typically route, but also identify all other variables that could result in the re-routing of the form.

Once district administrators have prioritized their processes according to time and cost, organized teams for each process, and captured the routing for each process and the variables, then they are well situated to begin the search for a school district automation company.  Districts should keep in mind when choosing the software company that it not only automates the processes, but it also provides administrators with the ability to then analyze the data and allow for records management.  Once districts head down the path to automation, they will then begin to reap significant savings and gain insight as to how they can more effectively spend their time and money in the future.

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However, let me highly recommend that if all of this sounds too challenging and time consuming that the experts in implementing all of this is EdAutomate. We've partnered with them to help our schools become more efficient and provide better customer service (and to save their schools $$). We encourage you to contact them directly or contact me and I'll have them schedule a call with you. So learn more about EdAutomate by calling Rebecca at 618.241.0042 or email her.