Is Your District Confident in Its Operational Readiness?

Technology became an integral part of supporting the district, administration, and the learning ecosystem that leads to student success through recent disruptions. Historically, technology was seen as playing more of a support role. However, the recent pandemic exposed the reality that districts need to move from thinking about software as a support function to a strategic component. An efficient technology infrastructure drives teaching, learning, and, more importantly, the operations (finance and HR) to support the educational ecosystem.

As districts consider this shift, they must understand the importance of adaptable, modernized data systems. Providing key business and data metrics to K-12 stakeholders is essential. Beyond fulfilling reporting and compliance duties, data systems must serve as a resource for administrators, teachers, and policymakers to improve operations, educational services, teacher and staff retention, and student outcomes.

Good data and analytics can help answer tough questions like:

• Are we managing funding effectively, efficiently, and equitably?
• What is the impact of our processes, workflows, and funding on student outcomes?
• Are we getting the best return on our investments?
• Are all teachers credentialed and highly qualified for their area?

Before districts use their data to answer these and many other questions, it must be collected, cleaned up, and formatted into logical outputs to tell the story. What drives this data is an entire web of business and student systems—sometimes interconnected, sometimes siloed—working to provide insight on our districts. There is no data without the systems, and states and districts cannot make effective decisions without the data.

In a recent Forrester report (2019), 95% of organizations see long-term value in modernization. However, only 27% have invested in it. K-12 districts need to modernize their data systems, and districts have the opportunity to do that with the influx of ESSER funding. So, what does the path forward look like?

Think about how much time and money your district spends to operate normally, let alone optimize your time and funding. Modernized, interoperable solutions can drastically reduce costs and more efficiently support students and teachers.

At PowerSchool, we see modernization as a continuum. It’s a four-step process through which districts can mature to reach an optimized data system.

Automation

The first phase of modernization is moving from manual, paper-based processes to automation/digital. A fitting example is moving routine processes such as payroll, purchasing, budget management, etc. online. While some schools still struggle with the time, effort, and frustration involved with paper-based business processes, forward-thinking schools have improved efficiencies with online and automated solutions. Many have digitized day-to-day processes like payroll while ensuring accurate financial and security controls are in place.

Kevin Harrison, Database Manager at Waynesboro Public Schools, says of his district’s switch to an online enrollment system, “Now, forms are filled out online prior to students walking into the school to submit their proof of residence and birth certificate.” This need was heightened during the recent pandemic and the shift to remote operations.

Workflow and Process Improvement

After districts have made processes and tasks digital and automated them, they should ask: are there workflow issues that need to be addressed? Today’s districts can’t afford to fail in terms of efficiency. While time is money in the business world, time equates to something even more valuable in education: student learning. Student learning suffers when school districts waste time and resources on outdated processes, methodologies, and inefficient disparate systems.

Conversely, for schools and districts running modern systems, automated and simplified workflows allow operations to run smoothly. This puts more resources and educator focus back into the classrooms as manual and redundant tasks are reduced. Modernized, integrated technology simplifies data collection and analysis from the classroom to the back office. This helps schools get more done in less time, enabling everyone to focus more on supporting student needs.

Like in any organization, there are countless ways for schools and districts to boost efficiency with technology. For example, tracking purchases and expenses in a spreadsheet within your finance system is a step above a file folder full of paper documents. However, schools and districts can implement tools to do so much more.

A modernized system multiplies time savings by breaking data out of silos and allowing it to flow securely between connected tools. An integrated finance and HR solution eliminates paper files and untangles workflows for recruitment, hiring, onboarding, payroll and finance, and even substitute management. Visibility across all of these systems allows for easier management.

Interoperability

Disparate IT environments eat up your IT resources. They make implementation, maintenance, and training difficult and costly. However, with an edtech ecosystem built on interoperability, significantly less IT staff time will be required to deploy, maintain, and manage your solutions.

Think about how much time and money your district spends to keep your finance, HR, and student information systems up and running. With an interoperable solution, those costs can be drastically reduced and redirected toward student needs. If you want to keep the money closer to learning in the classroom, an interoperable solution is for you.

A successful district relies on accurate data. But what good is accurate data if it’s inaccessible? Interoperable solutions can make it possible to access multiple types of data much faster. There is only one password between you and your data with single sign-on while also providing more security. Better yet, bring your data with you using a mobile app that’s accessible from anywhere.

Since interoperable solutions share data, they give your district and community instant access to real-time data across multiple platforms. More information means more collaboration. Interoperable solutions lead to increased engagement for everyone involved in the educational journey.

Data Analytics

Data can provide many insights, but analysis is key. Putting intuitive, actionable insights into the hands of teachers, administrators, and stakeholders empowers them to make informed decisions. That is why it is essential for your data systems to be interoperable. This enables staff and leadership to analyze data from multiple platforms, identifying trends, obtaining real-time feedback, and course-correcting as needed.

But even as schools have moved into the digital age, interoperability and a focus on making data-driven decisions still isn’t the norm. While administrators have access to more data than ever before, they are often overwhelmed by the volume and cannot use it strategically. Systems’ ability to create dashboards can allow district leadership to analyze large amounts of disparate data in a simple, visual way. When systems allow districts to see across multiple data sets, it allows for the unification of finance, asset, purchasing, human resources, and instructional data. The result is effective and informed decision making.

As districts begin leveraging ESSER funds to modernize their data systems, they can thoroughly evaluate operations to determine the best path forward on the continuum. The evaluation process should include assessing the following considerations:  

1. Workload
   Audit applications and software to determine their business value, criticality, and where there are opportunities to modernize. Assess workloads holistically in the context of the go-forward business direction.
2. Architecture
   Review technology infrastructure elements, performance, and ROI to assess where a modernized solution can deliver better outcomes.
3. Financial
   Evaluate spending to find budget burdens and find ways to optimize resources to support current operations and prepare for the future.
4. Risk
   Weigh the possible disruption to the business and any associated impacts to business processes and organizational culture against the desired outcomes of your modernization project. Also, consider the risk of keeping the legacy system as-is, including maintenance for out-of-support systems or those with limited resource support staff.
5. Operations
   Determine which new skill sets, training, and processes need to be factored into modernization costs and timelines.
6. Security
   Plan ways to protect systems before, during, and after modernization to avoid data loss, outages, and exposure. In the security plan, organizations should confirm adherence to governmental and industry compliance regulations.

Making a case for modernizing your operational systems boils down to improving workflow and processes with:

• Superior budgeting, procurement, and financial reporting capabilities
• Improved recruiting tools, allowing schools to drive recruiting needs
• Increased employee self-service for benefits, expenses, travel planning, and professional development
• Improved access to data to make more informed decisions

The goal is for a district to feel confident in its operational readiness and leverage data and analytics systems to make effective decisions.