Berkley School District Cuts Onboarding Paperwork Delays with Frontline Central

District Background

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Location

• Oak Park, MI

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K-12 Enrollment

• 4,500

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Teachers & Staff

• 750

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Products & Solutions

• Frontline Employee Central

Payroll Day Reality

On payroll day, Berkley supports roughly 750 employees, including about 200 in its Shared Time program. Shared Time staff work across about 40 sites in 3 counties. Many are within an hour of the district office, but that’s precisely the problem: “An hour just to drop off paperwork is something that we knew we couldn’t ask our staff to do.”

Meet Jenna Romain

Jenna Romain is Berkley’s Director of Finance. With a background as a CPA and about a decade in auditing, she’s attentive to the spots where process becomes risk, especially when payroll, benefits, and approvals depend on the same paperwork.

Challenges with Manual Employee Onboarding

Berkley wasn’t fighting one onboarding issue. It was fighting inconsistency.

“Previously, our processes for reviewing and approving status changes, new hires, and placements were disjointed. Half of our staff used paper packets, while the other half used a different product for online onboarding. We were especially lacking in consistent, in-district processes and relied heavily on paper,” Jenna said.

For employees, the experience felt dated. New hires would complete an online application, then get paper forms that asked for the same information again. Jenna heard the frustration directly: “This paperwork is archaic…I have to write my name on every single form and then have to either scan it or bring it back.”

For leaders, paper made routine approvals often difficult to execute. Jenna and the Deputy Superintendent of HR approve every status change. On paper, approvals required physical signatures, which meant work could stall whenever a key approver was out: “If one of us was out, we couldn’t access those paper forms to sign them.”

The start of the school year often involved missing documents and last-minute scramble to get staff fully approved for payroll. Jenna described the impact: “At the start of the year, Frontline saved significant time by eliminating the need to chase down required forms. We need staff ready on day one fully approved and able to be paid. Automated reminders made it much easier to ensure everything was completed on time.”

What Berkley Needed: The Non-Negotiables

Berkley wanted to go digital because it needed one secure workflow for every employee without paper routing, without signature delays, and without forcing people to re-enter information they’d already provided.

Jenna’s take on the old experience was blunt: “It’s 2025, almost 2026. I shouldn’t be doing an online application and then filling out a paper form where I give you all the same information.”

“Our main goal was to save staff and new hires time.  By not having to repeatedly enter the same information, they’re able to complete forms much faster.”

Jenna Romain

Director of Finance

The Solution: The Shift to One Workflow

Some of the systems Berkley evaluated were broad, generic routing tools, but they wanted something built for HR workflows and easy for employees to complete. As Jenna explained, “We looked at a few different workflow tools, but we wanted something that was truly built for HR and easy to use for staff and outside users. Since we already use Frontline for recruiting and hiring, Frontline Central made sense and helped us move away from duplicative paper processes and into a more digital way of working.”

Three Frontline Central capabilities stood out:

• Pre-populated information. Berkley wanted to stop making people retype the same basics again and again. “We really wanted to capture that efficiency of not having to put your name on every form.”

• Automated reminders. Instead of someone in HR manually chasing missing documents, the district wanted the system to nudge employees when something was still incomplete. Jenna liked that the system could remind people to fill out forms.

• Alignment. Berkley already used Frontline for recruiting and hiring and wanted onboarding to feel like a continuation of that online process, rather than a trail of paper forms. Jenna knows that schools sometimes lag behind on modernization, but they felt their district had reached a size and level of complexity where moving to a more modern, digital workflow was necessary and the right time to do so.

Implementation: Going Live Before Peak Season

Berkley rolled out Frontline Central with the calendar in mind. They started implementation around February or March and were actively using the system by June to steer clear of the late-summer rush. Jenna explained, “We weren’t trying to go live in August when it’s our heaviest time.”

From the start, the district treated it as a shared effort across payroll, benefits, HR, and Shared Time, and Jenna made sure there was a clear driver to keep decisions and tasks from drifting.

The working sessions were hands-on and collaborative. The team met together, walked through their real workflows, and challenged assumptions as they built it out. They didn’t wait for perfection before engaging, either. “We were very eager to start just playing with the system and trying things,” Jenna said.

Berkley also leaned on Frontline’s implementation support, working closely with an implementation lead. “She was fantastic, and great to work with.” The support they received from Frontline, and the decision to test it all out early in the process, helped the district surface issues before volume spiked. “Using the system early on and addressing any concerns definitely saved us from having those issues during peak season.”

To bring current staff along, Berkley used Central for beginning-of-year acknowledgements, which gave everyone a practical reason to log in and get comfortable with security steps. “It got all of our current staff to go figure out how to do the two-factor authentication,” Jenna said.

How Berkley uses Frontline Central today

Frontline Central now serves as Berkley’s workflow hub for onboarding, status changes, acknowledgements, and open enrollment. For Jenna, the daily win is approvals without being tied to a physical desk: “Relying on paper was inefficient and time-consuming, especially since HR approvals required physical signatures and couldn’t be completed when leaders were out of the office. With Frontline, approvals can happen anytime, anywhere.”

“Relying on paper was inefficient and time-consuming, especially since HR approvals required physical signatures and couldn’t be completed when leaders were out of the office. With Frontline, approvals can happen anytime, anywhere.”

Jenna Romain

Director of Finance

Results: The Impact Berkley Could Feel

The clearest result was readiness going into the school year: “Almost all of our employees had their paperwork done before the beginning of the school year.”

Frontline Central also reduced the time spent tracking down missing documents at the busiest time of year. “At the start of the year, Frontline saved significant time by eliminating the need to chase down required forms,” Jenna said.

Jenna summed up the broader shift: “We’ve streamlined and brought our processes into this century.”

What Berkley Would Tell Other Districts

Berkley’s advice is practical: assign a point person, test early, and involve the departments that will live in the workflow. Just as important, don’t let knowledge sit with only one person. Jenna’s emphasized collaborative resilience: “We try to have more than one person involved, so we can learn from one another.”

Closing perspective: A Better Start for Staff and the District

If you ask Jenna what makes Frontline Central feel valuable, she won’t default to buzzwords. She’ll talk about people. “People are busy. Some of these tasks are just monotonous. Our main goal was to save staff and new hires time.”

Berkley modernized onboarding to respect employees’ time — whether they’re in-district or spread across multiple counties — and to make sure staff start day one fully approved and ready to be paid.