Organization: NYCDOE
Product: SchoolStatus Forms & Flows (formerly Operoo)
Location: New York City

The back-to-school season in NYCDOE used to be a huge headache for administrative staff. Every student was responsible for returning multiple forms, including immunization records, media consent forms, and NYCDOE’s Emergency Contact Card, commonly referred to as the “blue card,” which  needed to be filled out by hand in triplicate.

In an ideal world, every student would have returned with a crisp copy of every required form, but that never happened. Instead, administrative staff had to manually follow up with parents to ensure necessary information was on file. Even after obtaining the proper information for each student, staff still needed to file copies of each form in multiple places.

It was an operational nightmare! 

With NYCDOE inching closer and closer to serving a million students, it became clear that form distribution, collection, follow-up, and processing needed to be digitized. To handle the whole process, the department selected SchoolStatus Forms & Flows.

The Challenge 

With so many students and so many forms, NYCDOE was looking for a more efficient solution for form processing.

Ellen O’Brien, Principal at PS 19 Judith K. Weiss School (Bronx), detailed how inefficient the process used to be: “Our old paper-based system for managing student registration and onboarding involved too many people and too much double-handling of data,” she said. “For example, each classroom teacher had to keep a running list of which students they had updated blue cards from and those who they didn’t. That manual and repetitive process led to another, where staff members from the school office would then verify the information again, before manually inputting the data into ATS.”

For ENL Coordinator at PS 100 Isaac Clason (Bronx), Sandy Larivee, it was more of the same. She detailed, “We were totally paper-based— it was archaic. Every September, we’d send home over 570 physical blue cards; one for every student. The kids would lose their blue cards, we’d chase them, then eventually re-issue a new document for completion.”

The manual method for form distribution and collection had problems beyond just being inefficient, it was also inconsistent with each teacher creating their own process for tracking submissions.

The Solution

In 2021, NYCDOE implemented SchoolStatus Forms & Flows (formerly Operoo) to handle onboarding and registration for thousands of students across the city. The hope was that adopting the platform would allow for a consistent, efficient approach to handling school forms.

Ms. Larivee explains, “The ability to complete all registration and onboarding requirements electronically—from Proof of Address and Housing Questionnaires to Proof of Immunization and Opt-Out Forms—was paramount.” 

Digital Blue Cards Central to a Successful Solution 

With a new digital platform in place, it only made sense to start with the blue cards, a form type that would touch almost every NYCDOE student.

“Blue cards were the first document we started with in [SchoolStatus] because all new students and incoming fifth graders have to submit an updated version,” said Renny Fong, Principal at PS 130 Hernando De Soto (Manhattan). “Digitizing our blue cards made it easier to collect more accurate information in less time, update records without having to request a new card from parents, while ensuring teachers could access their student’s blue cards anywhere, anytime.”

“The fact that I, the Pupil Accounting Secretary, and classroom teachers can instantly access, sort, filter, or print blue cards for all students in our care is really important,” said Lisa Calabrese, Parent Coordinator at PS 9 Naples Street Elementary School (Staten Island). “Whether working from home or in the school building, we can access one reliable source of data straight from our smartphones via the [SchoolStatus Forms & Flows] mobile app.”

Streamlining Processes with Cloud-Based Technology 

Beyond just collecting forms, schools were hopeful that adopting a new platform would help manage all of the disparate workflows around school forms. For example, could SchoolStatus Forms & Flows automate following up with parents who didn’t fill out a needed form?

The answer turned out to be a resounding “Yes!”

For Pamela Rosenberg, Parent Coordinator at PS 107 John W. Kimball (Brooklyn), the new digital system has allowed her to scaffold tasks for the parents she supports. She said, “You can easily go back and forth with parents online and allow them to submit documents one by one at their convenience. Nobody has to come into school. We used to have people cramming into the office for months to fill-in stacks of paper forms on-the-spot. It was a real headache.“ 

Building a Single, Accessible Source of Truth 

While distributing and collecting school forms was almost universally recognized as a pain, everyone also understood the importance. In the event of an emergency, forms needed to be accessible by the right school staff at a moment’s notice.

Over at PS 107, Ms. Rosenberg credits SchoolStatus Forms & Flows with finally giving her campus visibility into all of the information they needed. She detailed, “For the first time, we had one complete 360-view of all information submitted on behalf of each student during registration and onboarding. The ability to centrally collect and analyze data by form type was amazing. Simply put, being able to share a single accessible version of the truth with all authorized personnel—from the classroom teacher to the school nurse—was a game changer, eliminating significant duplication of efforts and information.” 

Dorothy Handler-Velazquez PS 50 (Queens) said the ability to monitor submitted registration and onboarding information in real-time was particularly beneficial. 

“Because we’re now distributing and collecting all data from one web-based platform, we can track returned forms and monitor progress—which I love,” said Ms. Handler-Velazquez. “I can call up specific parents if they look like they’re stuck and help them finish certain forms. I also love the date-stamped submissions for all forms, which keeps us on track and holds our parents to account.”

Finding Additional Value in Smart Groups, Automatic Translation, and Mobile Accessibility  

If the tremendous gains in operational efficiency weren’t enough, schools have also noticed a few additional benefits. For example, SchoolStatus Forms & Flow’s Smart Groups feature has made it easy to tailor communications and requests for information to specific subsets of incoming and returning students. 

“With Smart Groups, it’s easy to target certain types of students during the registration and onboarding process,” said Principal Fong. “We no longer have to send messages to the whole school population, which are irrelevant to many recipients. For example, we can send middle school application forms and information just to our fifth graders. Similarly, we’re able to create Smart Groups for incoming pre-K, Kindergarten, and immigrant families, associating particular forms or communications to each group.” 

“You can get quite granular too, building groups based on any data attributes you have available,” said PS 50’s Ms. Handler-Velazquez. “So, when it came to notifying interested families about our Kindergarten registration process, I separated our current pre-K students and outside applicants into two different groups because our existing children receive preference over new enrollments. It’s just so easy to organize through [SchoolStatus Forms & Flows.]”

Beyond Smart Groups, schools have also found serving their linguistically diverse populations to be easier with automatic translation and mobile accessibility.

“Parents and staff love the convenience of the multi-language capabilities,” said Calabrese. “Combined with the ability to access SchoolStatus from any device, it’s made a big difference to form completion and engagement rates. We’re now using it for all our school documents, not just registration and onboarding.” 

With the implementation of SchoolStatus Forms & Flows, the registration process has gone from crowded school offices to automatically translated forms parents can fill out on any device from anywhere.

The Results

PS 107 John W. Kimball (Brooklyn): 

“We completed what is normally a 3-month process in August alone,” said Ms. Rosenberg. “Thanks to the support of the [SchoolStatus] team, I was able to set up everything, hit ‘enable’, and register our entire pre-K and Kindergarten cohorts. It was amazing.”

PS 100 Isaac Clason and PS 19 Judith K. Weiss School (Bronx):

“Traditionally, registration is a long and drawn-out process that takes a team of 10 people, as we’re copying everything three times,” said Ms. Larivee. “This time, because it was all digitized and automated, it took just two of us to complete registration for 150 new students.

PS 130 Hernando De Soto (Manhattan):

“We’ve saved hundreds of hours of staff time, and I’m sure many more for our parent community,” said Principal Fong. “By digitizing and automating everything through [SchoolStatus Forms & Flows], there’s no more populating information from the DOE into forms by hand, or manually preparing language-specific packets and home language surveys for our ENL families.”

Moving forward: Capitalizing on the efficiency gains of adopting SchoolStatus Forms & Flows

Serving nearly a million students is quite the challenge. Luckily for NYCDOE schools, the challenges associated with form distribution, collection, and filing have been dramatically reduced with the adoption of SchoolStatus Forms & Flows. 

In the new post-paper era, families are getting the right information and can quickly complete necessary forms on the device of their choice. It’s hard for school staff to even imagine the old days when they manually sorted through piles, and piles, of blue cards. 

If you’re looking to revolutionize form collection and workflows in your district, schedule a meeting. We’d love to show you how SchoolStatus Forms & Flows works. 

District Overview

Organization: Erie 1 BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services)
Size: 19 component school districts plus approximately 29 cross-contract districts
Product: SchoolStatus Forms & Flows (formerly Operoo)
Location: New York

Executive Summary

Erie 1 BOCES, a regional educational service agency across Western New York, faced significant challenges with their aging special education referral system. Processing hundreds of complex referrals annually—each containing up to 150 pages of critical documentation—had become increasingly difficult with their internally-developed system.

“Our computer program was developed here maybe 10-15 years ago, and it was becoming very, very out of date and hard to maintain,” explains Emily Sass, Supervisor of Exceptional Education at Erie 1 BOCES. “We were put on notice that it’s going to be more and more difficult to continue maintaining this internally created program.”

After evaluating various options, Erie 1 BOCES selected SchoolStatus Forms & Flows to transform their referral management process. This case study explores how the organization successfully implemented SchoolStatus’s customizable platform to replace their legacy system and expand functionality across multiple programs, creating a more efficient process for managing special education placements throughout their region.

The Challenge

Erie 1 BOCES needed a solution that could handle their specific requirements: accepting student referrals for special class placements from approximately 48 school districts, managing related service requests, and supporting their summer school program—each with different workflows. Additionally, they required robust document management capabilities to handle substantial referral packets for each student.

The organization’s tech department had warned that their internal system was becoming unsustainable, creating an urgent need for a modern, commercial solution that could match and improve upon their existing processes while being easier to maintain and update.

The Solution

After beginning their search in January 2023, Erie 1 BOCES implemented SchoolStatus Forms & Flows to address their complex referral management requirements. The platform delivered several key capabilities that directly addressed their challenges:

• Document Management: Efficiently handles referral packets ranging from 30-150 pages per student
• Customizable Forms: Created approximately 10 different specialized forms for various programs
• Status Tracking: Districts gained visibility into referral status with direct feedback in the system
• Form Activation Control: Ability to activate and deactivate forms based on enrollment periods
• Cross-Device Accessibility: Staff can access referrals from any location using various devices

SchoolStatus’s flexibility enabled Erie 1 BOCES to implement specific workflows tailored to their referral process. When a district submits a referral, it follows a structured review path: first, support staff verify all required documentation is included; if anything is missing, the system allows them to reject the application with specific feedback. Once complete, the referral team reviews and determines appropriate placement options, then channels it to the relevant program administrators. The system tracks each step while maintaining clear communication with districts throughout the process.

“What we needed was to be able to accept student referrals for special class placements across all of our districts, accept related service requests, and manage our summer school program that runs entirely differently,” explains Sass. “We needed it to all function very specifically with the ability to attach documents—that was the biggest thing.”

The implementation followed a methodical approach, starting with core special education referrals before expanding to other programs. SchoolStatus’s team provided consistent support through bi-weekly meetings and responsive technical assistance throughout the process.

The Results

The implementation of SchoolStatus Forms & Flows has delivered substantial measurable improvements to Erie 1 BOCES’ referral management process:

Efficient Document Processing: The system now handles approximately 800 summer program applications alone, dramatically reducing physical paperwork and storage requirements.

Reduced Communication Overhead: With SchoolStatus’s built-in feedback mechanism, the process that previously required 3-4 email exchanges per referral is now completed within the system, eliminating an estimated 2,400+ emails annually across summer applications alone.

Enhanced Reporting Capabilities: “I was able to quickly export that Excel file from just this year, add a column for something that isn’t in our current form, and literally go kid by kid with all the information readily available,” explains Sass.

Improved Form Management: The ability to activate and deactivate forms has eliminated submission errors that previously required staff time to correct. During seasonal transitions like summer registration, this feature prevents misdirected applications that would have required manual intervention.

Expanded Program Support: Since initial implementation, Erie 1 BOCES has systematically expanded from their original two forms to approximately ten different specialized forms across multiple programs, including special education placements, related services, summer school, virtual academy, and alternative education.

Streamlined District Experience: “What they really like is if you reject something, they don’t have to redo an entire application. They can just click to resubmit, add information, and resend it back to us,” notes Sass, highlighting time savings for district personnel.

Conclusion

Erie 1 BOCES’ implementation of SchoolStatus Forms & Flows has fundamentally transformed how they manage student referrals, delivering substantial value beyond simply replacing their outdated system. The platform has become central to their operational efficiency, allowing staff to focus on their core mission of serving students with exceptional needs.

Looking ahead, they plan to complete their transition of all remaining programs into SchoolStatus, including Home Hospital Instruction, creating a unified digital system for all student placement and service requests. “We’ve only scratched the surface of what this program can actually do,” notes Sass. “Once we get every program on, I’ll be ready to explore what else we can accomplish.”

For educational service agencies and school districts struggling with outdated systems, paper-heavy processes, or complex program management, Erie 1 BOCES’ experience demonstrates the transformative impact of implementing a flexible, purpose-built platform like SchoolStatus Forms & Flows. Their methodical approach—starting with core needs and gradually expanding—provides a blueprint for successful implementation that minimizes disruption while maximizing adoption.

District Overview

District: Troup County School System
Size: 12,000+ students
Products Used: SchoolStatus Attend
Location: Georgia

Background

Troup County School System, a southwest Georgia district serving 18 schools and approximately 12,000 students, faced significant challenges in managing student attendance consistently and efficiently. The district struggled with fragmented attendance tracking processes, inconsistent communication with parents from school to school, and limited visibility into student attendance patterns, which led them to search for an attendance management solution.

The Challenge: Inconsistent Practices Across the District

Troup County School System (TCSS) faced a lack of consistency when it came to managing attendance across the district. Each school generated different attendance letters and sent them to different sets of students, creating confusion and lacking a unified approach to addressing student absences. Manual letter generation and mailing processes consumed substantial administrative time and resources from Family Liaisons. Staff spent hours creating, printing, and mailing individual communications—instead of focusing on student support strategies.

The district also struggled with significant difficulties in tracking students, particularly those frequently transferring between schools, which is common in TCSS. This transient student population created gaps in attendance monitoring, making it challenging to develop comprehensive intervention plans. Plus, the existing systems provided limited visibility into chronic absenteeism, preventing school leaders from quickly identifying and providing targeted support for students at risk of falling behind academically due to missed time in school.

The Solution: Automated Attendance Management

TCSS introduced SchoolStatus Attend after a recommendation from a former superintendent who was familiar with the platform from previous districts. Candice McGhee, the Director of Preventions and Interventions, emphasized the platform’s key value proposition: bringing organization and consistency to attendance tracking.

SchoolStatus Attend transformed the district’s attendance management through a comprehensive suite of innovative features. The platform’s automated interventions eliminated the tedious manual process of generating and mailing attendance letters, ensuring consistent and timely parent notifications. Ms. McGhee appreciated how this automation saved administrative time, allowing staff to focus on more strategic tiered interventions rather than paperwork.

The platform’s tracking capabilities provide unprecedented visibility into student attendance. Unlike previous systems requiring complex report generation, SchoolStatus Attend presents an immediate, clear list of absent students. This enables school administrators to quickly identify and target students at risk of chronic absenteeism, facilitating more proactive and personalized intervention strategies.

Robust documentation and compliance tools represent another critical advantage of the system. The SchoolStatus platform allows staff to comprehensively tag and document all communications, creating a streamlined record-keeping process that supports potential legal compliance requirements. Ms. McGhee shared, “We have everything already in SchoolStatus Attend, so that’s a great feature, very beneficial to us.” 

Results: Reducing Time on Interventions to Provide Targeted Support

The district’s attendance clerks have embraced the platform, appreciating its user-friendly interface and robust data dashboards. Ms. McGhee notes, “We don’t have to worry about [letters] anymore, SchoolStatus Attend does that for you—and that’s time management as well so that’s something else that the school officials could be working on instead of trying to get letters together.” Using SchoolStatus Attend has freed the district’s Family Liaisons to have more one-on-one conversations with families and allowed them to develop specific plans for individual interventions based on the district’s PBIS and MTSS frameworks.

For educational institutions seeking a comprehensive, intuitive attendance management solution, SchoolStatus Attend offers a transformative approach to tracking, communicating, and proactively addressing student attendance—ultimately supporting improved educational outcomes.

Want to learn how SchoolStatus Attend can improve
your district’s attendance rates?

District Overview

District: Roseville City School District
Size: 12,500 students
Products Used: SchoolStatus Attend
Location: California

Roseville City School District, a growing California district serving over 12,500 students in preschool through 8th grade, faced challenges with chronic absenteeism rising from 6% to 26% in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The district lacked consistent, data-driven processes to monitor and support student attendance. By partnering with SchoolStatus and developing a robust communication campaign, Roseville City was able to transform its attendance intervention efforts, leading to significant improvements in overall attendance rates, a dramatic 62% reduction in chronic absenteeism over two years, and award recognition for the district.

The Challenge: Inconsistent Attendance Tracking and Support

According to Director of Educational Services Erin Peterson, Roseville City struggled with an ad-hoc, manual approach to attendance tracking and intervention. She explained, “Our process was inconsistent, and we were unable to intentionally support students based on data.” The district relied on monthly attendance reports generated by school clerical staff, which were very manual and became easily disrupted by clerical staff turnover. This made it difficult for school leaders to proactively identify and assist students at risk of chronic absenteeism.

“We had no way to be able to quickly at our fingertips see who hasn’t been at school. Who has been at school? What are their attendance trends? What are their attendance patterns? It was a robust process to work with our student management system to even figure out what, if any, trends a student had,” said Ms. Peterson. “You were just going by a report. And it was human-driven. Our clerical had to run a report every month. And if we had any clerical turnover, they didn’t know how to run that report. And so then maybe schools never sent letters. Or they only sent letters to those students that they noticed had really high chronic attendance patterns.” This manual process led to inconsistency from school to school and a reactive focus only on the most absent students as school staff had to make choices based on the amount of time they had for tasks.

The lack of a centralized, data-driven attendance tracking system also contributed to inconsistencies in the district’s communication and support for families. As Jessica Hull, Executive Director of Communication and Community Engagement, noted, “I thought we were going to have 99% attendance when we came back. And it was actually the opposite because sentiments changed during that time. It was hard to get those families back. Nobody knew when they could come back. Can I come with a cough? I don’t know what’s safe. People didn’t know that we were prioritizing attendance again.” 

The Solution: SchoolStatus Attend Interventions and Consistent Communication Campaigns

Recognizing the need for a more proactive, data-driven approach to attendance, Roseville City Schools partnered with SchoolStatus to implement data dashboards and automated intervention letters. The SchoolStatus Attend platform provided the district with the tools and insights necessary to effectively monitor student attendance, identify at-risk students, and deliver targeted support to families.

“It’s created a space where we’re having the right conversations about attendance, whereas before it used to be, how do you run this report and what does this mean? Where now the conversations have become about whether there are any additional resources and how do we support this family? It’s really shifted that focus from the technical side of attendance to the right conversations around supporting families,” said Ms. Peterson.

The integration of SchoolStatus Attend also enabled Roseville to take a more proactive and data-driven approach to communication. As Ms. Hull explained, “The data helps us in so many ways. And so, we can do a lot of this work because we have the data behind it that helps to inform it. We’re making really educated moves because of having that data.”

The district leveraged the data and insights from SchoolStatus Attend to power its comprehensive “Every Day Matters” attendance campaign, which included targeted outreach, communication, and support for families. The campaign was built around informing families and staff about how sick is too sick, encouraging students to return to school, and consistently informing the community of a renewed focus on daily attendance for all students. As Ms. Hull explained, “We did a lot of informational outreach shared through our home-to-school, school-to-home communication system and through social media and our website about those facts that you might not think about. That every day does matter and that missed days do add up.” 

This holistic approach, combining data-driven intervention and strategic communication, proved highly effective in driving improvements in attendance. According to Ms. Hull, “What we’re looking at now is utilizing the data to inform the campaign. Our TK (Transitional Kindergarten) through One grade levels, our Seven and Eight grade levels, they’re chronically absent for different reasons and so we need to continue the campaign as a whole for all pre-K-8 but also have tailored specific messages for those communities.”

Measurable Results: Dramatic Improvements in Attendance and Chronic Absenteeism 

Roseville City Schools’ partnership with SchoolStatus Attend yielded significant, measurable improvements in average daily attendance (ADA) and chronic absenteeism in its first two years:

As Ms. Hull noted, “We’ve seen an over 50% decrease, which is the statewide goal. We’re already there, in just one year of work. And I think if we continue to focus, we’ll see even better results in the coming years.”

Roseville City recently had twenty of their schools recognized by the State of California for implementing Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS), their work with SchoolStatus Attend was a part of that recognition alongside the work that schools did to create and foster positive environments on their campuses. 

Ms. Hull shared, “I think one of the main pieces is that every single staff member is dedicated to this work. Not just the PBIS work but the attendance work. It’s a focus of every conversation that we have and so it’s really a commitment by over 1,300 people to make these changes.”

Ms. Peterson also credits the dedication of the staff as critical to the district’s success, “None of this would be possible without our incredible staff. They are willing to learn, they’re willing to dive in, they’re willing to support families every day. Our teams have worked incredibly hard to ensure we’re wrapping around families and giving them everything that they need to support their children with getting to school, as well as learning at school every day.”

Conclusion: SchoolStatus Provides a Partnership for Attendance Success

The partnership between Roseville City Schools and SchoolStatus Attend has been transformative, enabling the district to transition from an inconsistent, manual approach for attendance letters to a data-driven, proactive model of intervention and support. By integrating SchoolStatus Attend, Roseville City has been able to dramatically improve overall attendance rates, reduce chronic absenteeism, and shift the focus of their attendance efforts from technical processes to meaningful, data-informed individual support for students and families.

Ms. Hull summarized the importance of SchoolStatus Attend to her work, “We need to tell everyone all the time that attendance is important. And that’s the big thing that COVID did change for all of us—that somehow it wasn’t important. And if you don’t have a system like SchoolStatus Attend to constantly remind people…we can’t send a message every time someone’s absent. But a program like this does continue to message that consistently. And without that, I think you’re really struggling to find the time to give those messages on a consistent basis.”

Want to learn how SchoolStatus Attend can impact your district’s attendance rates?

District: Lake Worth Independent School District
Size: 3,500+
Product: SchoolStatus Connect
Location: Texas

As the landscape of education continues to shift and evolve, effective communication between schools and families is crucial. Lake Worth Independent School District, a Title I district serving approximately 3,500 students, was experiencing challenges communicating with students’ families.

After testing and evaluating multiple solutions, Lake Worth ISD decided that SchoolStatus was the best choice to help them build a more connected school community. This case study explores Lake Worth ISD’s choice to use SchoolStatus Connect for school-home communication, and the ways in which the platform has helped the district win the community’s trust.

The Challenge

Initial Transition Away from SchoolStatus

When Dr. Jeff Seeton joined Lake Worth ISD as a Principal, the district was using SchoolStatus Connect for their school-home communications. However, a decision was made by the district’s leadership to switch to a different communication platform. 

The transition wasn’t easy. The new platform lacked the functionality and ease of use that the district has been used to with SchoolStatus, making it cumbersome for teachers and administrators to communicate with parents effectively. The step down in quality led to complaints from district staff, who preferred SchoolStatus Connect to the new solution.

Communication and Trust Issues

Moving away from SchoolStatus exacerbated existing communication and trust issues within the community. Many families in the district already had difficulty trusting the school system, and the new platform’s inefficiencies only made matters worse. Keeping families engaged with school directly impacts student outcomes and behaviors, such as attendance, so a lack of trust can develop into bigger challenges over time.

The Solution

Return to SchoolStatus

When Dr. Seeton rose to the role of Assistant Superintendent in January 2024, he made it a priority to address the communication challenges. After consulting with principals and teachers, the consensus was clear—SchoolStatus was the preferred solution. 

The district transitioned back to SchoolStatus in July 2024, leveraging its robust features and ease of use to improve communication and build trust with families. The district uses SchoolStatus Connect’s communication features like messaging and announcements to stay transparent with families and keep them in the loop. And having a consistent log for messages and family outreach has been a huge time saver for creating reports and checking in on student cases. 

Implementation and Impact

Building Community Trust

Rebuilding trust within the community was a significant focus for the district. They implemented several initiatives to engage families right away, including school open houses for community events and holding registration nights. 

SchoolStatus played a crucial role in these efforts by making it easy for school staff to communicate about the events and get the community excited. The district invited families to communication nights and other community-building events that helped shift the image of schools into a place that students and families actually want to be. SchoolStatus has event planning and communication tools that make it easy to welcome families to the next open house or parent-teacher night.

Lake Worth educators also made use of call logging and transcripts in SchoolStatus Connect to establish transparency and clear records. Working directly with the community through SchoolStatus made it easier to build trust with families in the long run. 

Parents and guardians have rejoiced at the return to SchoolStatus. Many appreciate the transparency and timely updates about their children’s academic performance and school events. This renewed trust has fostered a more collaborative relationship between the school district and families.

System of Record

Attendance is a critical issue in public schools across the nation, and Lake Worth ISD is no exception. Districts need an easy way to track outreach to families and review past conversations—for accuracy, transparency, and reporting.  

SchoolStatus Connect provides call logging and messaging records that give staff a clear picture of past family communication. This feature is invaluable for Lake Worth ISD when dealing with truancy cases, which have strict requirements in Texas, as it provides documented proof of the district’s efforts to engage with families. The district team can quickly and easily pull reports to see records organized by individual students and district-wide.

Convenience and Functionality

One of the standout features of SchoolStatus Connect is how easy it is to use. Teachers and administrators can quickly pull up a student’s information and send a text message to families, streamlining communication. The platform also allows for the quick and easy creation of groups and bulk messaging based on specific student attributes, making it efficient for school-wide announcements. Dr. Seeton recalled an instance when a student fell asleep in a class he was observing; he was able to use SchoolStatus Connect to text the student’s mother and quickly get her involved without a conference. 

Teachers and administrators at Lake Worth ISD have praised SchoolStatus for its user-friendly interface and robust features. According to Dr. Seeton, “SchoolStatus allows us to buy time back and it’s well worth it.” 

Conclusion

The decision to return to SchoolStatus has had a profound impact on Lake Worth ISD. By prioritizing transparent and consistent communication, Lake Worth ISD has created a more supportive and engaging educational environment for its students and their families.

If your school district is facing similar communication challenges, book a demo to learn about the benefits of SchoolStatus. With a proven track record of enabling meaningful school-home interactions, SchoolStatus can help you build trust, improve attendance, and create a more connected educational community.

Learn more about how SchoolStatus can transform your school district’s communication strategy by visiting our website or scheduling a demo today.

Location: Santa Clara, CA
Enrollment: 3,070
Products Used: SchoolStatus Attend

District Overview

District: Hudsonville Public Schools
Size: 6,800+
Product: SchoolStatus Sites & Apps
Location: Michigan

Operating in Michigan’s “Schools of Choice” system, Hudsonville Public Schools is a K-12 district comprising 13 schools in and around Grand Rapids, Michigan. The district competes with eight other districts and 25 private schools within the county.

Hudsonville has received accolades for its achievements with schools designated as high-performing and academically excellent. The district’s high school was recognized by Newsweek magazine as one of America’s best. Attracting families to the school district is a major focus for district leaders. To further that aim, the district prioritizes communications and public outreach.

Challenge

Outdated Website Undermines District’s Excellence

The district’s communications coordinator Rebecca Fabiano says Michigan’s open enrollment policy keeps competition fierce, so branding—and a great school website—are necessary to attract the kinds of students and families that help fuel academic success. Schools of Choice means students from outside the district’s boundaries can attend a school, providing there is room for them.

Saddled with a school website that had been created from scratch by the district’s technology director, Fabiano realized that as the district continued to grow, the website needed an upgrade in functionality and ease of management.

“It was a good website, but it had run its course,” said Fabiano. “Stuff was so buried on our site, it was very hard to find, hard to access. Plus, the other technology needs of the district were advancing too, so our IT director had so much else to do.”

Hudsonville Public Schools is situated in one of the fastest-growing counties in Michigan, and is among the fastest-growing districts in the state. As the second largest district in Ottawa County, it is experiencing growth that reflects the area’s popularity.

Fabiano said that as the area grows, important factors like website accessibility and increased mobile use—two major requirements for a school website—were not being met with the old approach. And managing each of the district’s 13 websites had become a herculean task. 

“The needs of the website were growing right along with us, so the scope needed to expand,” said Fabiano. “We not only needed a website with a new look, but one that shifted the management of the site away from our technical people to our communicators, so they could focus on technology and we could focus on communications.”

It was time to explore a solution. That’s when the district turned to SchoolStatus Sites & Apps.

Solution

A Website That Makes a Strong First Impression, and More

As a public school district, Hudsonville Public Schools is committed to providing excellent education for all students, while also working to attract and retain families in an environment of school choice.

“We need to project a very professional image,” said Fabiano. “Not just for attracting new families, but depicting an accurate image that reflects what our district is all about. We have a culture at our school that it is a very caring, nurturing environment . . . our new site helps us convey that.”

Fabiano noted that the district’s reputation for excellence has led to consistent enrollment demand. Many families who move outside the district boundaries choose to continue their children’s education within the Hudsonville system. To manage this, and maintain optimal class sizes, the district employs a thoughtful enrollment strategy and continues to serve and accommodate families who value the district’s educational offerings.

“Image is very important, and you want that first impression to be positive,” she said. “Visitors form opinions (about your school district) right away from your website, so you really have to be up with the times and have a great-looking website that uses current technology.”

Besides projecting a beautiful image, the new site helps the school meet its ADA compliance and website accessibility requirements.

Using SchoolStatus Sites & Apps, Hudsonville is assured that all its web content is fully accessible to people with disabilities. Ongoing monitoring, monthly reports, issue remediation and training are all handled by SchoolStatus. The district’s site is accessible to all as well as the increasing number of people in the school community who use mobile devices to access the website.

“It’s a relief to know that [SchoolStatus] is helping keep all our 13 sites accessible,” said Fabiano.

Fabiano also welcomes the ease with which the respective school principals and secretaries can manage their school’s own content. SchoolStatus Sites & Apps enables nontechnical staff to readily create, edit, and publish pages, while district-wide content is automatically shared across school websites.

Outcome

A Website That Reflects School Excellence

SchoolStatus Sites & Apps is helping Hudsonville Public Schools compete and win in an open enrollment environment that puts school choice in the hands of families who are weighing schools on much more than just geographic proximity.

Hudsonville school administrators recognize the important role a website plays in depicting the excellence of the schools, staff, and performance that comprise the district.

With SchoolStatus as its K-12 success partner, the district has more than a beautiful, easy-to-manage website, but a communication foundation that’s fully accessible and ADA-compliant saving time, money, and other school resources.

District Overview

District: Starkville Oktibbeha School District
Size: 5,000
Products Used: SchoolStatus Sites & Apps
Location: Mississippi

Starkville Oktibbeha School District is a 10-school district operating in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. With its district headquarters in the town of Starkville—home of Mississippi State University and the Oktibbeha County Hospital Medical Center—Starkville Oktibbeha School District is the third largest employer in the county, and a vital and very visible part of the community fabric.

In recent years, Starkville and Oktibbeha County school districts—two very distinct districts, each with established identities and cultures—were combined as part of a consolidation plan. A new superintendent, Dr. Eddie Peasant, began implementing a strategic plan designed to transform the district over the next five years, addressing the many facets that are critical to educational excellence: student achievement, school culture, community engagement, and more. And at the heart of the plan was a spirited focus on the unified district’s mission and vision—one that’s being driven by clear and strategic communications.

Challenge

Navigate Compliance and Improve Engagement

There were two major challenges confronting the school district. Early into the implementation of the district consolidation, Starkville Oktibbeha School District officials had received a formal complaint from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights informing the district its website did not meet the federal standard for website accessibility. Schools are required to have an ADA-compliant website to serve those individuals with physical and cognitive disabilities, and Starkville was among the thousands of U.S. school districts requiring website remediation to meet federal guidelines for ADA compliance.

At the same time, the district’s public information officer and communication lead Nicole Thomas had already begun an audit of the district’s current website. In years prior, the district began a communications program with the mission of motivating students, staff, and the entire Starkville school community, but the district’s websites fell short of that goal.

“We weren’t telling our story as well as we could have,” said Thomas. “There was a lot happening, not the least of which was the consolidation of the two districts a couple years back…We also had just this exciting new partnership school with MSU (Mississippi State University), so we had a lot to communicate. There was a lot of great stuff happening, and our website wasn’t reflecting that. We needed a fresh new look.”

Compounding the issue, the cumbersome web content management system (CMS) tools and the lack of training resources and support for content managers resulted in stale, inaccurate or unorganized content.

Solution

New Online Communication Strategy

Motivated initially by the OCR complaint, Thomas and school administrators charted a course to learn about website accessibility. Thomas tapped information about ADA-compliant websites from SchoolStatus Sites & Apps and put in place a plan to build a new website that not only satisfied accessibility laws, but one that looked professional and was easy for Starkville’s entire school community to use.

The wake-up call from the OCR also signaled for Thomas a broader perspective on how a school website should work. “It [accessibility] changes the way you approach your website,” said Thomas. “When you start thinking about formatting content to meet these guidelines, you start examining what information is best for your website.”

In addition to helping the Starkville Oktibbeha School District create ADA-compliant websites, SchoolStatus also helped to keep them accessible. Both through ongoing training and support on how to create accessible content, the district turned to SchoolStatus Sites & Apps for  monitoring, remediation, and training to keep websites compliant. “Accessibility is an ongoing process,” said Thomas, “It’s not like you wake up and everything is perfect and you’ll never have an issue again.”

Thomas and her colleagues looked at how their website content was organized and used SchoolStatus Sites & Apps’ website architecture tools to lay out content hubs and optimize navigation. “A clean, nice design helps people be able to find what they’re looking for, whether they have a disability or not,” said Thomas. “People are coming to our site for a reason, and want to quickly and easily find the information they need.”

“We wanted a great-looking district site, but we also wanted to carry the branding through to all our schools,” said Thomas, who selected from one of the many themes in the SchoolStatus theme library. The themes, while maintaining the basic color, logos, and other branding mandates established, allow website administrators and authorized publishers to adjust layouts, design widgets, and content on a school-by-school basis.

In addition, Thomas finds the News feature on the district main page especially helpful, for it allows web publishers to share news and event content from the district site to either targeted schools or every school. “From one dashboard, we can push information out precisely to the schools where it applies,” said Thomas. Families can easily see the content that pertains to their school.

Outcome

An Accessible Website Inspires a Unified District Brand

The new website has been a boon for the district’s community relations and enrollment recruiting. “For a lot of people, their first stop is the school website,” said Thomas. “It’s been met with rave reviews from parents, teachers, community, and now state level. In addition to being appealing graphically and easy to manage, it’s accessible for those with disabilities.”

The SchoolStatus website solution for Starkville Oktibbeha School District not only solved web accessibility issues, it established a communications foundation for a school district going through tremendous change. The new website and unified brand will be an incredible asset for the district in the future. 

Location: Contra Costa, CA
Enrollment: 5,353
Products Used: SchoolStatus Attend

Location: Santa Fe, NM
Enrollment: 10,569
Products Used: SchoolStatus Attend

Located in the Borough of Staten Island, Elias Bernstein Intermediate School 7 is a New York City school spread across three grade levels — six, seven and eight. 

With staff at Elias Bernstein striving to ensure its 1,200 students participate in its large range of events, field trips, extracurricular activities and support programs, Principal Dr. Nora De Rosa said that managing those services — and school trips in particular — had become exhausting for administrators, teachers and support staff alike. 

With an innovative vision for Bernstein Intermediate, Dr. De Rosa and Assistant Principal Dina Testa were keen to embrace technology-led solutions to this challenge.

The Challenge 

Paper-based and disparate processes to approve, plan and manage school trips were massively inefficient for staff, while negatively impacting student participation and parent engagement. 

The Solution 

SchoolStatus Forms & Flows streamlined and digitized the whole end-to -end trip management process in a single automated workflow, including permission slips, integrated payments, and anytime access to Blue Card emergency contact information. 

The Results 

Elias Bernstein has completely transformed the way it plans, communicates and manages field trips, resulting in superior parent engagement, equity and access for students, and reduced administrative demands on school staff.

Challenge

Trip Management Had Become a Nightmare—For Everyone

Working with paper-based processes to approve, plan and manage school trips was increasingly inefficient and had begun to consume an unsustainable number of staff hours at Elias Bernstein.

“Collecting parental consent and payments was particularly time-consuming,” said Assistant Principal Dina Testa. “Staff had to issue multiple manual reminders, telephone parents, and follow-up with kids who had left paper permission slips and payments at home. In fact, most of the time, students simply left them crumpled at the bottom of their school backpacks, never making it home in the first place.”

On top of this, the school struggled to manage all the payments for every field trip. Testa said the school had no systemized mechanism for tracking payments.

“Children would often arrive on the morning of a trip and state that they had paid,” said Testa. “But, we had no record of payment or an accessible method of verification,” said Testa. “Additionally, parents would frequently say that they never received payment requests, leaving them equally exasperated.” 

The inverse problem was also common. While parents could pay for some field trips through the school website, consent could not be given as part of that same process. Additionally, staff were left trying to match payments to specific trips and parent consent. 

“Inevitably, parents often thought that submitting payment through the website also counted as consent,” said Testa. “Kids would frequently arrive for a trip in the morning, only to be told that they had no permission slip so could not attend.

Solution

Automating permission slips, payments — and everything in-between

For Testa and Elias Bernstein Intermediate staff, discovering SchoolStatus was a little like love at first sight.

Previously, we’d never been able to find anything that met our needs,” said Testa. “Then we found [SchoolStatus.] There was no other system out there that could take the whole trip management process online in a single automated workflow. 

Now, teachers don’t have to produce, manage or chase endless paper forms. SchoolStatus Forms & Flows takes care of it all: From internal trip approvals, to creating, distributing and automatically following-up permission forms, collecting consent and payments, taking roll call, and securely accessing students’ emergency contact cards (Blue Cards) from any device — even when offline. 

And the parent community sees the benefits too. 

“Parents love it,” said Testa. “Parents can give permission for their children to attend trips with a couple of clicks, and sign with a swipe of the finger via the mobile app. Even if it gets to the morning of an outing and parents have forgotten to give consent, teachers can call their cell and stay on the line while they submit permission in under a minute.” 

Elias Bernstein also chose to add payment submission as a compulsory step within their trip consent forms. That way, both the school and parents know that when permission is given, payment has been too. 

But the benefits of streamlined, digitized and integrated permission and payment workflows extend beyond field trips — for both parents and teachers. 

“Now, with [SchoolStatus Forms & Flows,] it’s basically just one click for all the consent forms and contracts for parents,” said Testa. 

“Previously, the first day of school used to mean fifteen pieces of paper for parents to wade through. As a parent, not just an administrator, I see how much easier [SchoolStatus] makes things on both sides of the fence.” 

Testa said that the impact of SchoolStatus Forms & Flows’s permission and payment workflows could be evidenced throughout a range of school programs — from extracurricular study groups and basketball sign-ups, to parent volunteering, student – teacher contracts, as well as collation and access to Blue Card information. 

“We run an after school test-preparation program at a cost of $155 per student,” said Testa. “For the last few years, I’ve got 80 kids involved. 

This year, using [SchoolStatus Forms & Flows,] we’re already up to 128 kids and we haven’t even hit the due date — so I know there’ll be more! 

“Last year, we had a poor turnout for our basketball program. Now, the amount of interest is overwhelming — we almost had too many registered! We’ve also consistently asked for parent volunteers, through our PTA, to help out at school events. Previously, we’ve been lucky to get a dozen volunteers. Today, we have more than 200. 

“We also distribute our student-teacher contracts via [SchoolStatus Forms & Flows,] which ensure each child brings the classroom supplies they need to participate,” said Testa. 

“There’s no more begging students. [SchoolStatus] automatically identifies and sends out reminders to parents until each student comes to class fully equipped. Automated follow-ups are amazing.” 

SchoolStatus Forms & Flows also provides streamlined workflows for the collection, updating and access to digital emergency contact Blue Cards. Authorized staff know exactly what to do, and who to call, in an emergency. 

“We manage and update Blue Card information for both students and staff with [SchoolStatus Forms & Flows,]” said Testa. “Previously, teachers had to physically go to the main office to request files. 

Results 

“It’s now second nature. We’ve had a huge amount of parent buy-in.” 

Elias Bernstein Intermediate has completely transformed the way it plans, communicates and manages field trips and other school processes. 

Instead of manual, repetitive and disparate paper-based practices and procedures, SchoolStatus Forms & Flows’ school workflows platform automates those processes. The result? Increased parent engagement, equity and access for students, and reduced administrative demands on school staff — all while providing traceability and accountability. 

Testa said that teachers now feel as though they are missing something, when on school trips, as they no longer need to carry a huge binder full of paperwork.

The transition has been extremely successful. Digital forms distributed to parents, including payments, have a 98 percent response rate — without any manual follow-up. In fact, Elias Bernstein processed over $100,000 worth of transactions through SchoolStatus Forms & Flows’s integrated payments capability in the first three months of use. 

“Of our 1,200 students, we have fewer than ten who are yet to sign-up to the platform,” said Testa. “We’ve had a huge amount of parent buy-in.” 

And the benefits stretch far beyond school trips too.

Testa added that, while implementing such a significant change had its challenges, SchoolStatus delivered the support needed to make Elias Bernstein successful. 

“The help [SchoolStatus] gave us was amazing; I’ve never before received help like that from any company,” said Testa. “The [SchoolStatus] team were responsive to our needs and delivered top notch support you just can’t beat. Honestly, we feel like we want to stay with [SchoolStatus] forever. Its people make it such a good experience.”

District Overview

District: Grand Prairie Independent School District
Size: ~26,000 students.
Products Used: SchoolStatus Attend
Location: Texas

Grand Prairie Independent School District is a school district of 39 schools in and near Dallas County, Texas, serving a student population of over 26,000 students. 

The district places close focus on student attendance. Dr. Tameka Lewis, GPISD’s Student Attendance and Dropout Prevention Coordinator, leads a team dedicated to addressing student attendance within the district, including data collection and analysis, direct interventions, representing the district in court, and providing training and resources to school leaders.

Outdated Tools Lead to Slow Response Times

Dr. Lewis’ small team manages attendance intervention for the entire district, from phone and mail interventions, to home visits, to truancy court filings and more. These responsibilities demand close attention to detail with little margin for error, which made them hard to scale across the entire district. 

Prior to choosing SchoolStatus, Dr. Lewis and her team relied on a variety of tools and programs in their work. But they were consistently frustrated with inefficient tools that took up valuable time. To improve their processes and conduct better attendance interventions, Dr. Lewis and the GPISD Board decided to try SchoolStatus Attend.

The programs her team used to pull student information, deploy mailed letters, and prepare filings for truancy court required manual effort to pull data for each student. This made it much harder to give dedicated focus to specific cases and interventions. As Dr. Lewis put it, “because of the endless cycle of paperwork, there was a lot less people work going on.” The time-consuming process made it challenging to perform timely, effective interventions for students at risk of chronic absenteeism. 

Because her team was stretched thin, Dr. Lewis needed a way to streamline processes while maintaining data accuracy and security. With an easier way to access attendance data and put it into action, her team would be able to place more focus on helping students. After carefully evaluating several attendance solutions, GPISD partnered with SchoolStatus Attend as their attendance management and intervention platform.

GPISD selected SchoolStatus Attend over other solutions for several reasons. The platform lowers the difficulty of accessing and sharing data to inform attendance strategies and interventions. And it simplifies the intervention process by enabling automated interventions by SMS, email, phone, and physical mail. SchoolStatus Attend also made it much easier to share data reports for truancy court, which had previously been a big draw on the team’s time. 

Faster, Smarter Attendance Interventions

One of the major motivations for streamlining attendance data and intervention processes was to shift effort away from process and towards individual students. Implementing SchoolStatus Attend across the entire district allowed Dr. Lewis’ team to empower each school with data visibility and resources to battle chronic absenteeism at a personal level. It can be hard to introduce new technology to a district, but administrators across GPISD reported that SchoolStatus Attend was easy to learn and to use, and the platform was quickly adopted. As Dr. Lewis said, “[SchoolStatus Attend] gave us all of these wonderful and very necessary components in one platform.”

With more precise data on their hands, school leaders could get a better understanding of each students’ challenges—and develop more targeted intervention plans to support each student. With SchoolStatus Attend, school leaders and counselors in the district could see details that weren’t available previously, like the time of day when a student was absent, or past intervention records from truant officers or school officials. These details gave counselors much more opportunity to engage with families as part of the community, and address issues early before they evolved into chronic challenges.

Another major improvement SchoolStatus Attend brought to GPISD was speed. Cutting down on paperwork and consolidating processes into one platform allowed the team to send interventions more quickly than before. With faster access to student attendance trends and immediate follow-up to missed classes, school leaders and counselors in the district could build relationships with families and help correct behaviors in a positive way. For instance, interventions on the day of an absence allow parents to respond and give context, so an unexcused absence can be excused without harming a student’s record. 

By streamlining the most time-consuming elements of attendance intervention and using data to inform their strategy, GPISD schools were able to achieve significant time savings and use attendance conversations to build a stronger school community. 

SchoolStatus Attend Drives Attendance Wins

Dr. Lewis and GPISD have seen significant improvements in efficiency and student attendance rates. They’ve also seen an improvement in conference effectiveness, the change in attendance rate for a specific student, measured 30 days before and after a scheduled conference. GPISD achieved a conference effectiveness rate of 23%, indicating that attendance intervention conferences are effective at curbing absenteeism.

They’ve also seen direct year-over-year improvement in attendance rates during November and December holidays, which is one of the toughest times of year for student attendance. Dr. Lewis used SchoolStatus Attend data visualization to see that Mondays and Fridays were particularly challenging days for attendance. She used that information to coordinate a proactive plan with principals in the district, scheduling fun school events on Mondays and Fridays and incentivising attendance with a student recognition program. The results: a significantly stronger attendance rate in November 2023 compared with previous years. 

Going forward, the district intends to continue using SchoolStatus Attend as their platform of choice for managing attendance data and intervention. Equipped with data and a lighter administrative workload, the district can put their efforts towards informed, targeted intervention, and help students learn and thrive.

See What SchoolStatus Can Do For Your District

Want to learn how SchoolStatus Attend can impact your district’s attendance rates? Contact our team for a personalized demo.

District Overview

District: Prince William County Schools
Size: Over 92,000 students across 100 schools
Location: Virginia

Facing big communication and data management hurdles, a large school district in Virginia turned to SchoolStatus to boost family engagement and cut down on chronic absenteeism. The results have been remarkable.

Prince William County Schools (PWCS), the second-largest school district in Virginia, serves over 92,000 students across 100 schools and centers. Their leadership team saw the need for a unified solution to tackle communication and data management issues, especially to support their diverse student population, which includes a large number of minority and ESL students.

Navigating Challenges and Seizing Opportunities

Before bringing in SchoolStatus, PWCS faced a lot of challenges. The district dealt with disconnected data systems, unreliable tools, and poor customer service. As their technology leadership team noted, they did not have a strong plan for the use of data within their systems. This disconnection was particularly problematic for their 70% minority student population and 40% ESL students, creating a significant gap between teachers, staff, and families.

In their search for a solution, PWCS wanted a platform partner that could provide reliable tools and excellent customer service. They found SchoolStatus, which offered a comprehensive data and communication platform. Their leadership team liked that the data, IT, and student information were centralized and directly connected to the messaging platform, allowing easy creation of custom data-driven groups and subgroups to target communications and interventions effectively. The auto-translation feature was especially crucial for engaging with non-English-speaking families.

SchoolStatus Connect & Attend:
A Dynamic Duo

PWCS piloted and then fully implemented SchoolStatus Connect and Attend. The benefits were immediately clear and with integrated student data, analytics, two-way communication tools, and an attendance management system, SchoolStatus was a game-changer for PWCS.

With SchoolStatus Connect’s single-screen Student Card, educators can see all the data they need to communicate effectively about student progress. From this screen, they can effortlessly exchange messages with families in their preferred language and through their preferred channel, whether by text, phone, video call, or email, greatly improving their ability to reach every family and support every student. School administrators can see a record of all communication with families and view recordings to monitor and intervene when necessary. The auto-translation feature allowed the district to bridge the language gap, making it easier for teachers and staff to engage with all families.

The implementation of SchoolStatus significantly reduced the administrative burden on schools. “The administrative overhead for the schools to manage the amount of attendance letters they were having to send out, we have taken that off their plate. Which was a big win,” said Director of Information Technology Services, AJ Phillips.

The full adoption of SchoolStatus has led to principals and teachers feeling better equipped to meet student needs. “We’ve been able to tell them, ‘hey you can use it for communication, but look at this cool dashboard,’ and now we are at a stage where we want to use it and do even more,” Ms. Philips explained.

The platform has improved communication and data management, enabling the district to focus on at-risk students, easily provide reports, and make data-driven decisions to support student success. Ms. Philips noted, “In our division, we all need to provide data at our quarterly updates with the superintendent.”

“It’s easy for our principals to go, ‘These are the kids that I’m focusing on, and these are the plans I have in place, and this is why and what the data is telling me.’” AJ Phillips, Director of Information Technology Services, PWCS

Immediate Impact and Achieving Goals

• Improved Family Engagement: The auto-translation feature and targeted communication capabilities of SchoolStatus have significantly enhanced family engagement, particularly among minority and ESL populations, with 87% of families responding positively to engagement and texts.
• Reduced Chronic Absenteeism: With the implementation of SchoolStatus Attend, PWCS saw a leveling off of chronic absenteeism rates within the first quarter after implementation, and in the first year they saw 68% of students that received one attendance letter did not miss additional school to require a second letter.
• Reduced Administrative Burden: The tools have alleviated the administrative workload associated with managing attendance, allowing staff to focus on more impactful activities leading to 96% of PWCS teachers feeling like they are more equipped to meet student needs with the SchoolStatus tools at their disposal.

Partnering for Student Success

PWCS established a goal of a 95% on-time graduation rate for all students by 2025. To help meet this goal, the district partnered with SchoolStatus to develop an integrated dashboard merging data analytics and communication tools for educators.

In June 2024, PWCS and SchoolStatus were awarded a silver-level Learning Impact Award from 1EdTech Consortium (1EdTech), for their innovative collaboration on the “Focused Student Support” dashboard and the positive impact that it has had on PWCS students, educators, and administrators. To date, PWCS has seen double-digit declines in chronic absenteeism. 

“Having all of our students’ information in one place allows us to quickly and easily identify which students need intervention and support,” said Ms. Phillips. “With limited resources, the real-time data insights provided by the dashboard are invaluable, helping us to see how students are performing across various categories.”

“This tool, designed with educators and administrators in mind, has significantly enhanced our ability to support our students effectively.” AJ Philips, Director of Information Technology Services, PWCS

A Bright Future Ahead

PWCS is now better equipped to support its diverse student population and address chronic absenteeism effectively. Ms. Phillips shared, “We’re excited to delve deeper into data functionality, especially our principals.”

With a focus on data-driven decision-making and effective communication, PWCS is poised for a bright future, ensuring that all students have the support they need to succeed.

Continue the Conversation

Discover how SchoolStatus can transform your district’s communication, attendance, and data management. Contact us today to learn more or request a demo.

Vicksburg Warren School District, a diverse district comprising 16 schools, faced challenges including low attendance rates and lagging academic achievement. Superintendent Chad Shealy led the transformation by implementing SchoolStatus Connect to unify student data, consolidate family-teacher communication, and simplify data-driven interventions. These implementations helped the district overcome challenges and enhance student success, resulting in significant improvements. Attendance rates soared from 70 to 80% to a consistent 92%, and graduation rates saw a remarkable increase from 56% to 90%. 

Challenge: Unlocking Student Potential Amid Data Challenges

The district struggled with low attendance rates and inadequate academic achievement, attributed partly to data accessibility issues. Educators had limited visibility into timely and relevant data, hindering informed decision-making. Additionally, family-teacher communication was disjointed, especially for at-risk students. “Data is my love language. It’s where I live as a superintendent. You can’t structure a good quality plan if you don’t have real reliable data,” explained Superintendent Shealy.

Solution: Empowering Educators with Data and Communication

Shealy introduced to the district SchoolStatus, a robust platform that unifies student data, simplifies data analysis, and improves communication between teachers and family members. By implementing SchoolStatus, Vicksburg Warren gained access to real-time, actionable data, facilitating informed decision-making.

The communication component of SchoolStatus proved to be extremely beneficial for the district. It provided a transparent view of all communications between teachers, administrators, and families. For example, by accessing a student’s profile, administrators could observe 28 communications from teachers and 15 from the principal, providing a comprehensive understanding of each student’s situation.

This level of visibility fostered better collaboration among stakeholders and enhanced support for students, and educators were able to effectively collect and analyze data to personalize student interventions.. As Shealy explained, “As an administrator, I want to make sure that if a kid’s not there, I want my teachers to call the families before we get a whole administrative intervention and counselors involved. And if all of your communication comes through SchoolStatus, which it does in my district, I can see it all. It’s all right there.”

Results: Remarkable Improvements in Attendance and Graduation Rates

The implementation of SchoolStatus has yielded substantial improvements. Attendance rates have reached and remained steady at 92%, rising as high as 97% following a focused intervention period. Graduation rates have surged from 56% to 90%. By analyzing data including, assessments, standardized test results, student grades, teacher performance data, and more, educators have been able to personalize interventions for at-risk students based on individual needs.

By adopting SchoolStatus, Vicksburg Warren School District overcame data challenges, enhanced communication, and transformed student outcomes. The platform’s impact is reflected in improved attendance and graduation rates and better collaboration among educators, administrators, and Families.

To learn more about how SchoolStatus Connect can help your district engage more families and create a positive learning environment in schools, contact our team.

IDEA Public Schools is a charter network that is rapidly growing. As they continue to scale they face many challenges ensuring that their processes are consistent across 91 schools and more than 7,000 educators. IDEA’s leadership recognized that the key to achieving this goal was to strengthen their processes around observations and ensure their administrators had the right tool to succeed. To do so, IDEA partnered with SchoolStatus to implement SchoolStatus Boost, a scalable observation and coaching platform that centralizes notes and data to enable leaders to easily spot trends and support educators.

Creating a network-wide growth mindset for educators

IDEA is a public charter network that serves students in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Ohio. Founded in 1998, IDEA has 91 schools, and U.S. News & World Report ranked six IDEA College Preparatory high schools among the top 500 high schools nationwide and in the top 60 in Texas.

IDEA’s mission is to ensure that every student is accepted to and prepared for college. In the 2018-19 school year, more than 1,185 seniors graduated from 15 campuses, and for the 13th consecutive year, 100% of IDEA students were accepted to college.

“Our network is rapidly growing, with new schools opening in 2021-22,” shared Richel Raich-Cantu, Director of On-Demand Training. “The way we onboard, train, and support new leaders and teachers is critical to our mission of 100% college-bound seniors. [SchoolStatus Boost] has become a critical tool for us to be able to streamline the observation and coaching process around our rubric.”

The Goal: Maintain High Expectations for Educators and Leaders as the Network Scales

IDEA’s leaders set high expectations for students and instructors, and they have rigorous standards for the data they use to measure progress. They needed an observation and coaching system that could keep up with their data needs and support their proprietary rubrics, with one for educators and another for school leaders.

Since SchoolStatus Boost partnered with IDEA in 2015, the number of schools in the network has grown eight times as large. This growth has increased the demand for training leaders and educators on the rubric requirements and their overall approach.

Raich-Cantu shared that “because our network is so large and expansive, we’ve relied on digital tools to support our onboarding, training, and coaching work, and [SchoolStatus Boost] is an essential piece of the puzzle. Every IDEA leader and teacher has access to the platform, which enables 1:1 conversations but also network-wide visibility into the ongoing observation and feedback cycle. We use this to pull out emerging trends which drives how we think about professional learning opportunities.”

The Challenge: Disrupt Silos and Leverage Technology to Support Every Educator in the Network

The expansion of the IDEA network means that different schools are at different stages of development and training. Their challenge is to break down communication barriers and ensure that they differentiate professional development to meet the needs of both long-time and new staff members.

“We’re seeing our strongest ratings with our newest staff because they went through onboarding and training most recently,” said Raich-Cantu. “We’re working with our long-time staff members to refresh and recertify their training in our rubrics. [SchoolStatus Boost] helps us manage our growth with continuity and flexibility.”

Streamlining the observation process allows IDEA leaders to focus on what matters most. Raich-Cantu shared, “Our leaders love the Sketch feature. The form is easy to use and includes timestamps and links to our proprietary rubric so that the focus remains on classroom observations.”

The Results: A Tool That Supports a Growing Network Focused on Its Critical Mission of College Readiness and Advancement

IDEA leaders have a clear vision for their educators and students, and they look to SchoolStatus Boost to track, measure, and ultimately advance this vision. 

SchoolStatus Boost has enabled IDEA Public Schools to customize the observation, coaching, and professional development process across its growing network of schools. With a centralized place to store evaluation targets, track observation cycles, and view real-time reporting at the individual, group, school, or network level, IDEA leaders can pinpoint holes at each level and monitor progress toward goals. 

For eight years of rapid network growth, SchoolStatus Boost has supported IDEA Public Schools in maintaining its high expectations for educators and students at scale. “We see the [SchoolStatus Boost] customer support team as an extension of our own team,” said Raich-Cantu. “Many are former teachers, and we’ve come to rely on their expertise in designing an observation and evaluation system that works to support our aggressive goals.”

Conclusion

Since 2015, IDEA Public Schools has used SchoolStatus Boost to streamline observations across its expanding network of schools. IDEA leaders save time performing over 23,000 observations per year by keeping everything in one location—meetings, evidence, classroom visits, action steps, and notes. From there, SchoolStatus Boost empowers leaders with network-wide data to inform professional development opportunities, helping IDEA Public Schools maintain its standard of excellence across its network of 143 schools.  

To learn more about how SchoolStatus Boost can streamline and enhance your observation process, contact our team.

The Galena Park School District in Texas, serving over 21,000 students, faced challenges in consolidating student data and effectively communicating with non-English speaking families. To tackle this, the district implemented SchoolStatus Connect, a comprehensive platform for data visualization and family communication. With this tool, Galena Park integrated all insights, allowing for holistic views of behavior, attendance, grades, and test results. Overall, these data solutions have created a more effective learning environment and increased educator-family interactions throughout the district.

Serving a Diverse Population

Galena Park ISD is a diverse school district outside of Houston, Texas serving over twenty thousand students. Despite collecting large amounts of student data in multiple systems, Galena Park had been unable to combine their data into a single view. Now the district integrates all their student data with SchoolStatus and uses the combined visualizations to make proactive decisions for their students. Additionally, Galena Park leverages the communication functionality within SchoolStatus to engage families using calling, text, and e-mail—all without giving out the educator’s personal contact information. 

Expanding Student Reach  

80% of students in Galena Park ISD are economically disadvantaged and almost a third are ELL, so Galena Park’s 3,200 staff members work diligently to ensure that this generation of kids can grow to become lifelong learners . Elizabeth Lalor, Associate Superintendent at Galena Park and a self-described “data nerd”, knows how important data can be to achieving this vision,“If the right person has the right data at the right time, then a child’s struggles can be a teachable moment rather than a series of lost opportunities.”

The time and effort involved in cross-referencing student  information in several systems usually meant that it didn’t happen at all, and it sometimes meant that student information which would have been helpful yesterday wasn’t actionable today. 

Discovering Efficient Data Solutions  

Galena Park was the first school district to use SchoolStatus to integrate Texas student data sources. The SchoolStatus team delivered on its promise to offer a combined, visualized view of all the district’s data. “We have a complete student data picture, finally. It has everything in one place. Their testing data, their attendance, their behavior, their grades, all in one spot.”

Getting a single view of student data has proved to be only the beginning. Lalor receives a daily data digest from SchoolStatus by e-mail and uses the information to highlight and address issues–absences, assessment trends, discipline–before they become problems. Additionally, educators and administrators at all levels can now access an integrated view of individual students using the SchoolStatus Student Card, a complete data picture for each student. 

Leveraging Data to Foster a Better Learning Environment 

Galena Park has also successfully integrated student data into their transition planning by creating data groupings. For example, separating students who have struggled with discipline into different classes or shuffling the schedule of students who are frequently tardy. This can help foster a better learning environment for everyone. “My favorite part [of SchoolStatus] is the At-Risk Group [capabilities]. This is how we’re proactive. 

We got to choose what behavior to track within the student population like:

1. Students that have five or more infractions
2. Students that have an average daily attendance (ADA) is less than 95%
3. Students that failed their last STAAR Test (the Texas Assessment); 
4. Students that  have a D or F on their last report card

And if any of these apply, we can pull a list of all of the kids who have three points or four points, and monitor them. Especially during the transition years, we can roll this over to the school they’re about to go to and say, ‘OK, here are your kids that are the most at risk.’ Put them with the best educators, don’t put them with the new educators because we don’t know. If they have bad attendance, don’t put their first class to be reading or math, put it as an elective, try to get them there. We use this for taking action with our kids.” 

Closing Communication Gaps with Non-English Speaking Families

 Lalor brought SchoolStatus into Galena Park to integrate the district’s view of data–and it’s done just that. However, in the process, Galena Park has also begun to use SchoolStatus for family communication with non-English speakers. 

“[…] We’re 79.9% Hispanic, one third English language learners, so it will translate into multiple languages and once families know this is how I can get in touch with an educator, they’re texting back on that and it’s all documented.” said Lalor.

Before SchoolStatus, Galena Park communicated using whatever means were available—email, phone, texting—but didn’t have any way to manage or record the process or ensure that communication was consistent or even that it was happening at all. Additionally, educators and administrators often ended up giving out personal contact information in an effort to connect and then regretting it later when texts and calls started to come in over the weekend. Since SchoolStatus allows Galena Park to record all communication, it enables Lalor and other administrators to manage both engagement frequency and quality. 

Boosting Communication in a Learning Community

Records of text conversations, e-mails, and even automatically transcribed call recordings all add to a student’s educational record and fill in the details of a child’s struggles and achievements. This bird’s eye view of a student’s journey is what allows everyone in a child’s life–educators, family members, and admins– in the learning community to stay informed and empowered to make better decisions. Educators at Galena Park use SchoolStatus to communicate frequently with families. Since SchoolStatus combines communication and student data into a single application, this has the added benefit of increasing the frequency with which the district’s educators study student data. 

Galena Park was the first school district to use SchoolStatus to integrate Texas student data sources. The SchoolStatus team delivered on its promise to offer a combined, visualized view of all the district’s data.

Sudden distance learning didn’t stop this district from getting at-risk seniors across the finish line.

Early in March 2020, just before Covid and Spring Break, Woodward High School had 36 students at-risk of not graduating and nine who very likely would not graduate. With sudden, unavoidable distance straining the relationships with students and their families, Covid-19 was threatening the administration’s ability to help those seniors in need. Superintendent Kyle Reynolds saw these challenges as an opportunity to look towards technology for problem-solving in his Oklahoma District. Reynolds spent ten years as the Technology Director before taking up the Superintendent position for Woodward Public School District in 2014. 

 “With a lot of the technology we have in place when we went into the pandemic, we were in a great position,” Reynolds explains. Every student received Chromebooks for online learning and access to necessary materials via e-books. For educators, there was also a need for technology to step in and help them communicate more effectively with families. Reynolds turned to SchoolStatus—a communication tool that helps the district reach every stakeholder.

Communication with Families is Changing

Reaching families, in general, is a lot harder than it has ever been. “It’s not like 20-30 years ago when you call and leave a message on someone’s answering machine at home,” observes Reynolds. “Most people don’t even answer the phone if you call their cell phone.” Family engagement barriers are even greater when you consider the different languages spoken in many homes. 

SchoolStatus enables educators to text families directly, in any language—making two-way conversations more frequent and enhancing the relationships between teachers and families. “Having the translation options in our area is crucial,” Reynolds adds. Working through a translator or worse, a student, is a good way to slow down or cut off the line of communication between home and school. “It is so much more efficient to have the preferred language feature in SchoolStatus,” says Reynolds. 

In addition, with automatic logging and tracking, SchoolStatus helps administrators view the frequency or success of communication efforts district-wide—a great feature as Woodward High School Principals worked to help their struggling seniors graduate over the summer.  “SchoolStatus gave us the opportunity to be in touch with those students in a continuous manner,” explains Principal Sunderland. 

Success in Numbers 

“It became almost second nature not only for us as an administrative team but also for our teachers,” says Principal Sunderland. “The convenience, simplicity, and availability are the biggest things for us. We want to make things as easy as we can for our teachers and SchoolStatus does that.” For Woodward High School educators, persistence pays off. 

About Woodward School District

Woodward Public Schools is located in Northwest Oklahoma and the home of the Boomers. The district is made up of six schools with over 2,738 students.

Boomer Mission: We Believe Woodward Boomers will become lifelong learners with a pioneer spirit: cooperative, productive, responsible, and ready for the future.

Boomer Vision: We will engage all stakeholders in an ongoing, collaborative, data-driven effort to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps.

Values: ALL site leaders will be mutually accountable for the progress of ALL students through the monitoring of student achievement data and growth on a monthly basis.

To learn more about how SchoolStatus Connect can help your district engage more families and create a positive learning environment in schools, contact our team.