How Delaware Valley School District Cut Time-to-Hire from Months to Two Weeks

Challenges Before Frontline	Results After Frontline
Manual, paper-based onboarding created inefficiency and frustration. Applicants had to print and handwrite dozens of forms, often repeating information, leading to long in-person reviews and candidates abandoning the hiring process.	Onboarding time cut from months to as little as two weeks. Automation eliminated redundant data entry and manual checks, speeding up hiring and improving candidate experience.
Disjointed systems and data silos slowed HR collaboration. Key information was spread across spreadsheets and an Access database, causing errors and communication gaps between HR, Payroll, and Technology.	Connected HR, Payroll, and Benefits workflows under one platform. Frontline Recruiting & Hiring, Central, and HRMS created a connected data ecosystem that automatically routes information to the right departments.
Applicants and staff wasted hours on repetitive, error-prone processes. Candidates made multiple 40-minute trips to the office, and HR spent excessive time correcting incomplete paperwork.	Automated, logic-driven forms improved accuracy and experience. Role-based workflows ensure no steps are missed, while applicants complete forms once online, making HR look “more efficient and professional.”

A Large Rural Employer with a Lean HR Team

In northeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware Valley School District serves 4,200 students and employs about 760 staff across 200 square miles. For HR Coordinator Carol Skrypek, who manages onboarding for all employees, that scale once meant long drives, stacks of paper, and hours lost to manual processes. 

“I am the district’s HR coordinator,” she said. “I do all of the onboarding for all of our permanent employees, substitutes, and co-curricular or other positions that aren’t a permanent position.” Before Frontline, onboarding meant paper packets, handwritten forms, and long in-person reviews that left HR and candidates equally frustrated. 

Manual Steps Deterred Candidates and Consumed HR Time

“When I started in this role, we had all of our forms in non-fillable PDFs on our website, and we would instruct our applicants to go to that website, print out those forms, and fill them out,” Skrypek recalled. “When I onboarded, I was irritated by how many times I had to write my name, my date of birth, and my address — especially since I’d already put it into the application.” 

The hiring and onboarding process dragged on for months, and the district was losing candidates to other employers. “We’re the largest employer in Pike County, and we pay well, but we were struggling because the process is so long from when somebody applied to when we were able to onboard that person,” she said. 

Applicants made multiple trips to the central office — sometimes 40 minutes each way — only to discover missing or incomplete forms. “We would meet, and I would go through all the paperwork line by line with a little checklist,” Skrypek said. “Inevitably, something was missing… It took up a lot of my time. It took up a lot of their time.” 

Behind the scenes, information lived in disconnected spreadsheets and an Access database. HR, payroll, and technology staff were constantly chasing updates, and candidates often never heard back. Something had to change. 

The Right Time, the Right Call: Bringing HR Under One System

As Delaware Valley’s old applicant tracking system neared renewal, Skrypek heard about Frontline Recruiting & Hiring. The timing was ideal: a benefits staffer had just left, creating pressure to modernize. The district adopted the system, followed by Frontline Central and Frontline HRMS — building one connected ecosystem across HR, Payroll, and Benefits. Frontline’s platform replaced the patchwork of PDFs, Access files, and spreadsheets with connected data and automated workflows. 

Implement Fast, Then Mature

Recruiting & Hiring: Delaware Valley needed a live application portal for spring recruiting. Skrypek launched quickly, then refined it with pipelines and templated emails that revealed candidate progress. “If Principal A is interviewing and I don’t know who they’re interviewing or if they’ve even interviewed yet, I’m still the person the applicants call,” she said. “Now I can see through the pipeline.” 

HRMS (Benefits): When the benefits administrator left, the district paused Central to focus on HRMS. Skrypek partnered with a Frontline implementation specialist — who was “fabulous,” she said — and with peers at another Pennsylvania district to swap lessons learned. 

Frontline Central: Once HRMS was up and running, Skrypek built logic-driven forms and role-based workflows. “Now we just fill it out online, and it sends it out to everybody. Technology knows, Payroll knows, Benefits knows, Absence Management knows, Professional Development is notified,” she said. “It’s great.” 

Packets now route automatically to departments, and workflows are tied to roles instead of people, ensuring continuity when staff change. 

From Hand-Holding to Hands-Free Routing

“We’ve created different packets for each of those work classifications,” Skrypek explained. “Each form has instructions and forces you to fill it out correctly. That gets routed straight to whichever department needs it.” Direct deposit forms go to Payroll; new-hire reports to HR; benefits updates to the right administrator — all without manual copying. 

“It’s a better process for us internally, and it is a better process and a better look for our applicants,” Skrypek said. “We look much more efficient. We look and work much more professional.” 

Automation cut redundant data entry and improved accuracy through Frontline’s staff record. Applicants no longer retype information, and HR no longer double-checks forms line by line. 

Speed, Signal, and Shared Truth

Time-to-hire dropped from months to as little as two weeks, depending on board meeting dates. “It would be months before getting somebody from a job posting to coming in the door,” Skrypek said. “And now we can do it in as short as two weeks.” 

“The amount of time I have to spend with each applicant is significantly less,” she added. Freed from paperwork, Skrypek’s team now focuses on recruiting and the new-hire experience. “We spent some time last year revamping how we do our recruiting… We’re upping our game with that a little bit.” 

Cross-department visibility improved dramatically. “Our benefits person knows what’s going on, our board secretary knows what’s going on, Payroll knows what’s going on,” Skrypek said. “Everybody has one location to find that information.” 

Automation also keeps everyone informed. “With the forms being so automatic, I don’t have to worry that our Technology Department didn’t know we hired six instructional assistants yesterday,” she said. “They just have that information and can set up the new employee’s technology accounts instantly.” 

The district extended automation to staff-facing forms like tuition reimbursement. “The response has been overwhelming. It caught on really quickly,” Skrypek said. 

What People Are Saying

“Not having to keep a copy of [a form], not having to keep track of it, not having to remember if you sent it or not — it’s all right there in your profile, and you can see every step of where it’s at,” Skrypek said. “People love the forms that we have implemented.” 

For HR, the relief is tangible. “Just going through that nitty-gritty stuff, now we’re able to disseminate additional information that we weren’t before, like where to park and simple stuff like that.” 

“Our key wins are the speed at which we’re able to onboard somebody, the efficiency in that onboarding process, that we’re not missing forms, that we’re not having to duplicate any sort of process,” she said. “It’s just a better look for our applicants and our district.” 

One System

“We’d had an Access system for position control. Our benefits system kept control of benefits. Then there were spreadsheets for clearances and spreadsheets for professional development,” Skrypek said. “The fact that all that information is now housed in one spot, and everybody has the same information, has been one of our biggest blessings.” 

Raising the Bar on Employer Brand and Velocity

Next, Skrypek plans to redesign the careers landing page with teacher testimonials and videos, empower principals to manage more of their own hiring workflows, and track paraprofessional retention and post-to-fill timing. “It is definitely beneficial to your district to have some sort of system in place,” she said. “The systems talking to each other is a huge benefit… It just makes everything cleaner, neater, tidier, more efficient. I’m all about making things as quick and easy as possible for everybody. To me, that’s a big win.”