Challenges
- Collecting timely and accurate student data
- Integration between enrollment and SIS
Products & Solutions
Results
- Cost savings
- Improved productivity
- Streamlined data delivery
Bedford selected PowerSchool Enrollment to transform the district’s business process by streamlining the workflow for processing student enrollment and registration.
Bedford County Public Schools (VA) is comprised of 10,300 students. The sizable student population urged Bedford to achieve uniformity throughout the district for capturing and managing student data in their PowerSchool student information system (SIS). Bedford selected PowerSchool Enrollment to transform the district’s business process by streamlining the workflow for processing student enrollment and registration. Bedford benefited from the interoperability between PowerSchool SIS and PowerSchool Enrollment, providing an optimal experience for this district to obtain, consume, and react to family, student, and staff information.
Saving $82,000 per Year
Prior to using PowerSchool Enrollment, Bedford would distribute and collect approximately 15-20 forms per student. Due to the volume of paperwork, school administrators worked through the month of December before all student data was entered into their SIS. “Factoring in the cost of labor resources, paper, and ink, PowerSchool Enrollment saves us an average of $82,000 per year. If you analyze the time that staff would previously spend on printing 154,000+ sheets of paper, following up with families, and manually processing and polishing student data, it came at a significant cost to our school district,” says Kevin Harrison, Data Manager at Bedford.
Leveraging Interoperability
“Once PowerSchool Enrollment helped us improve our productivity, we began to explore all of the opportunities that PowerSchool is capable of providing,” says Harrison.”The PowerSchool API allows our school administrators to deliver data without exporting and importing files, resulting in real-time, on-demand data delivery from PowerSchool Enrollment to our PowerSchool SIS.”
Custom Fields
Bedford had taken the time to create custom fields in their PowerSchool SIS before implementing PowerSchool Enrollment. Those fields include photo release forms and student medical conditions, which allow school administrators to manage vital data. “As we were considering an online registration management provider, it was important for us to be able to transfer over the customizations we had in our SIS,” says Harrison.
Choosing a Provider
“We looked at other online enrollment solutions, but quickly realized that a business solution converted to a school solution wasn’t the innovation we were seeking. What separates PowerSchool from its contenders is that they have always been in the business of providing customized solutions for schools and they have the most advanced PowerSchool SIS integration and data management capabilities in the industry,” says Harrison.
Using PowerSchool Enrollment streamlined Bedford’s process for collecting demographic information, emergency cards, medical conditions, parental permissions, and much more. Parents raved to school administrators, voicing their appreciation for not having to fill out an abundance of paperwork. Administrative personnel are grateful for the efficiency of the PowerSchool API and its ability to deliver clean, accurate data directly into their SIS, including custom fields, saving them valuable time.
“Working with the PowerSchool team to implement the PowerSchool API was a huge success and the smoothest rollout I’ve ever had for an API. Everything from start to finish was effortless, because they took care of us. The customer service is impeccable, attributing to the fact that PowerSchool has been the easiest team I’ve ever worked with,” says Harrison.