How Integration Between Enrollment and SIS Saves Wyoming District Time

Challenges

• Lack of connection between enrollment data and student information system  
• Illegible paperwork led to inaccurate student data 
• Unable to predict future class sizes and staffing needs 

Products & Solutions

• PowerSchool SIS 
• PowerSchool Enrollment 
• PowerSchool Performance Matters 

Results

• Reduced time spent enrolling students by 60% 
• Accurate student data stored in a single, online location 
• Improved forecast of classroom and resource needs 

With just over 2,800 students, Wyoming’s Teton County School District 1 lacked education technology that worked together and shared critical data. They also needed a replacement for their inefficient paper-based enrollment system that left staff deciphering handwritten forms and tracking down missing information.  

“It could take you a couple of weeks just to input all the new students,” recalled Kim Byrne, the district’s PowerSchool Administrator. “We had a lot of manual entry, which brings errors.” 

They turned to PowerSchool Enrollment and PowerSchool SIS for an interoperable, efficient registration experience for staff and families. “Now, we don’t have to do data entry from those pieces of paper. Having systems that allow us to be more effective and efficient gives us more time with students, and that’s what it’s all about,” says Byrne, who’s responsible for implementing and managing the district’s PowerSchool products.

Eliminating Wasted Time 

Switching to online PowerSchool Enrollment helped Teton County reduce the time spent enrolling students by 60%. According to Byrne, that translates into “a couple of weeks’ worth of work per building, and we have ten buildings. That could be a whole year’s worth of work.”

PowerSchool Enrollment makes the process easier for their families. “Parents like that they don’t get this huge folder of documents to fill out, especially with multiple kids. When parents have multiple children in the schools, PowerSchool makes it easier to enroll another child,” says Byrne. Families can enter all the necessary age, demographic, and health information in one simple, easy-to-use system. 

Byrne estimates that the district gets 90% participation from parents during the enrollment process, which means they get nearly all of their students’ data before school starts.

“Now, before school even starts, parents and students know their buses, lunch codes, all the classes they’re in, and everything else needed to start school. It takes a lot of that angst out of the first day of school. Plus, our staff are ready and don’t have to scramble to get lists together because they’re missing information. Everyone can breathe easier. It eliminates many unknowns and the follow-up work that takes up so much of your time.”

Integration Between PowerSchool Products Creates Accurate, Accessible Data

As an interoperable system, PowerSchool Enrollment integrates securely with PowerSchool SIS. Any student data collected during the enrollment process flows directly to those who need it. 

“Our enrollment information seamlessly transfers into PowerSchool SIS, so we don’t have to track down pieces of paper and enter data from those pieces of paper. It’s just all one package. I love how it works with PowerSchool SIS. Now the right departments get the right information,” Byrne says.

“Before, we had a lot of manual data entry. With that comes errors,” she adds. 

Because of this integration, Teton County School District 1 only needs to collect student data once—leaving less room for duplicate or inaccurate data. PowerSchool gives them a single, secure, and reliable source for all their student information.

As an example of how the integration improves processes, before PowerSchool, the district mailed postcards to every student with their bus route information. Colby Stevens, the district’s transportation director, had told Byrne, “We need to find a better way. We’re mailing over 2,000 postcards, and many of them come back. It’s a hassle, it’s a cost, and it’s time. Is there any other way we could get this information to parents?”

Byrne’s answer was to import the bus routes from PowerSchool SIS to PowerSchool Enrollment. Then, during student registration, Byrne includes a message that lets families know which bus their student is on, and pick-up and drop-off times and locations.

“With the ability to add transportation-specific student information into PowerSchool Enrollment, our department has saved so much time,” Stevens says. “Rather than having to manually communicate this information to parents, we can now get the information into parents’ hands in a more quick, efficient, and accurate way. 

“This has saved us a few thousand dollars and probably over 20 hours when all was said and done, if I had to guess.”

Stevens says that getting bussing information to parents early and eliminating the mailing and follow-up processes, they can focus their efforts on better activities.  

“Now we can give more attention to other needs as they arise. With the time we would have had to spend on postcards or manual communications, we can now spend routing students, training school secretaries on our systems, fielding transportation related requests from parents, training drivers, and more.”

Better Planning for the Future 

Empowered with more accurate, timely student data, Teton County can now better predict their upcoming needs. If they’ll need more ESL teachers, special programs accommodations, or bus drivers—as examples—PowerSchool gives them the student data they need to prepare.

“Our administrators can make better decisions to meet student needs, staffing needs, and forecasting for budgeting,” says Byrne. “Also, when planning for professional development for different grade levels, we can see the anticipated enrollment of our kindergarteners. We can plan for things like bus routes, health files, screenings, and things we need to do for students.” 

Byrne says that it “took forever” to get accurate kindergarten student counts before PowerSchool Enrollment. But now, as soon as enrollment opens, they’ll get as many as 150 families to complete the process online, which helps them plan out staffing and classroom needs.

“We get the majority of our kindergarteners enrolled within the first two weeks that we opened the form for enrollment.”

The district has even started using PowerSchool to track trends by looking at student data. For example, they now collect data on whether their students attended preschool or not, and which one. They then track performance over time in their assessment platform, PowerSchool Performance Matters, to better understand the efficacy of their preschools or the benefits of students attending at all. 

Using Online Forms to Gather Sensitive Information 

With the customizable form builder in PowerSchool Enrollment, the district uses online forms to capture a wide variety of information from parents. “I can collect anything in enrollment from parents,” Byrne explains, “like preferred name, or pronoun, gender pronoun, preferred pronoun. We ask those questions, which are sometimes sensitive, and then we can send that data right into PowerSchool SIS. That way, if a student wants to identify differently or use a different name than their legal name, we get that upfront. It’s not weeks into the school year.”

In another example, the State of Wyoming requires districts to collect Medicaid information for IDEA students. Instead of calling parents or sending a notice home, the district can capture that information accurately and confidentially during registration.

The district has even improved their student safety by collecting essential health plan information, including plans for students with asthma, allergies, diabetes, and more, ensuring critical data is available in case of emergencies. Parents can securely upload documents and forms, including immunization records, within the process.

“Our nurses love that they get the information so quickly and that they can go into Enrollment themselves and pull those forms. Before, school would start, and we wouldn’t have all of the information we needed. We’d send home packets with families, and parents would have to fill out forms and return them. Nurses would have to make calls and follow up. Now they get that information right away, and they’re thrilled,” Byrne says.  

PowerSchool Support When You Need It  

PowerSchool’s award-winning support, training, and user community have been instrumental in helping Teton County School District get up and running quickly and effectively with their products.

“You can’t beat PowerSchool’s support,” Byrne says. “With other edtech vendors, I usually have to log a ticket and wait for someone to get back to me. It can take a day or two at least to get that support. But with PowerSchool, if I ever need help learning new features or another type of support, I can always call and get immediate feedback. We can usually work through things right then. It really helps increase productivity.” 

Byrne has attended PowerSchool University, an off-site event with deep-dive product training sessions and networking opportunities with other users. She also takes advantage of PowerSchool Community, the dedicated support site offering discussion forums, monthly product office hours, online learning events, and knowledge-base articles.  

Connecting All the Dots to See the Whole Student  

As a smaller district, Teton County School District 1 depends on reliable edtech solutions to make the best use of its time and efforts. By connecting PowerSchool products and sharing data between solutions, the district is seeing the impact of giving students and families their best educational experience.

“If you want something to connect dots, PowerSchool is your ticket. PowerSchool products will connect all the dots for you—from enrollment, into the SIS, to assessment to the learning management system. If you want something to give you that information to see the whole student, PowerSchool is the solution.”