Skip to content

Blog

How to Solve Shortages and Increase Substitute Effectiveness

Substitutes aren’t babysitters; they’re educators. They often walk into unfamiliar environments, with unfamiliar people. They teach multiple subjects, save the day in emergency situations, and help prevent learning gaps. Many do so with grace and professionalism, and embrace the opportunity to impact student achievement in the process. There’s no question that substitutes are educators. And their ability to take the baton and lend continuity to the full-time teacher’s hard work is an art. Certainly, this is work worth doing. So why do so many schools struggle to maintain effective substitute programs? Why do low fill rates and substitute shortages plague administrators across the country?

The real problem: people don’t choose to substitute

Ask any group of kids what they want to be when they grow up. “A football player!” “A chef, because I like to eat!” “A veterinarian; I think my neighbor’s dog is cool!” But how many would say they want to be a substitute? With substitute teachers often saying they feel misunderstood or undervalued, it’s no surprise that the number may not be overwhelmingly high.

Unfortunately, substitute teaching can suffer from the misperception that the role is nothing more than school-sponsored babysitting. Consciously or unconsciously, this is the message often communicated — and so the dominos fall, leading to fewer people applying for substitute positions, lower engagement and plummeting fill rates. So what can districts do to overcome this issue to ensure teacher absences are quickly filled and student learning remains uninterrupted?

We think you’ll enjoy this hand-picked content:

Preparing Substitutes for the Classroom.
Read Now

Changing perceptions to re-engage substitutes

Substitute teaching is certainly not easy in many ways, and there are realities of the job we cannot change. We can, however, change the perceptions around substituting. We can help people see that it’s worth choosing. If substitute teaching is not seen as an educator-based role worthy of support, recognition and encouragement in your district — it’s time for a change. Be the one who embraces the humanity and capability of the substitute teacher and help others do the same. Here are five actionable tips to help re-engage substitutes in your district:

  • Lay the ground-work through community building and communication
  • Put the “substitute as educator” through strategic substitute management
  • Keep in touch with your former and retired teachers (they may just be up for re-engaging to substitute at your district
  • Make it easy for substitutes in your district to be prepared for leading instruction at your schools
  • Offer your substitutes a thoughtful, comprehensive, and connected experience from finding jobs, accepting jobs, and even all the way to flexible access to pay
We think you’ll enjoy this hand-picked content:

Explain It Like I’m 9: The Substitute Shortage
Watch Now

Fostering financial wellbeing for substitutes

Why is flexible access to pay such a critical step to re-engage substitutes? We see it every day: restaurants and retailers are offering same day pay to incentivize people to pick up jobs. You can’t drive down a main street or open social media without seeing an advertisement for “get paid as you earn.” And in order for districts to compete, they’ll have to ask their technology partners for innovations that support their mission to solve the substitute shortage.

Substitute teachers work hard for their money. However, due to district policies or pay cycles, subs can find themselves in a situation where they might work for weeks (or months) before getting access to their paycheck. An interruption in pay can be a roadblock for people to accept substitute teaching positions when they could either stay in their current role or seek employment with more flexible pay options.

If you’re stuck wondering how your district can provide flexible access to pay, Frontline Education’s exclusive partnership with Wagestream can help! This partnership offers substitutes access to their pay when they want it, as they earn it. Giving substitutes more control over their pay fosters financial wellbeing and minimizes stress, allowing them to bring their best selves into the classroom. Wagestream is not a loan and there is no interest: just simple, secure and reliable access to their earned money!

Ready to re-engage substitutes and revolutionize pay in your district? Learn more about the Wagestream offering

3 Characteristics (and Examples) of Great Teacher Job Descriptions

In the United States, there are over 13,000 school districts and 33,000 private schools, all vying to hire the most exceptional educators. But with the ongoing teacher shortage and the decline in teacher preparation program enrollments, it makes this stiff competition even harder and may leave district leaders struggling to meet school demands and serve student needs.

If your district feels as though your back is against the wall with little you can do to fill open positions when candidate supply is low, you’re not alone. The good news is, there are ways to stand out! By tailoring your recruiting practices, your district can rise above the competition and quickly attract the highest quality applicants from the existing candidate pool.

Making Your District Stand Out

In a perfect world, you’d have enough time to do a deep audit and revamp of your recruiting strategies. Chances are, you don’t have the hours to commit to such a big initiative right now. Instead, start with one piece that piece will make a quick impact, like job descriptions! Yes, those job descriptions. The ones that have been serving your district well enough for the past several years (or in some cases, decades).

Do they still accurately reflect the current job responsibilities? Do they clearly outline what you need and expect from candidates? If so, that’s a good start — but it’s just the beginning.

Great job descriptions are current and accurate.

Some districts haven’t updated their job descriptions since Prince turned himself into a symbol. What about yours? Set a goal to review job descriptions and job posting templates on a yearly basis —during employees’ year-end review, or as part of the planning process.

When you do update your job descriptions, it’s a good idea to conduct a job analysis and create an ideal candidate profile. That way, you can ensure that every job description accurately conveys the knowledge, skills and abilities you’re looking for.

Great job postings are written for job-seekers — not hiring managers.

Too often, job postings are written for a hiring manager’s point of view, when they should be written for job-seekers. Of course, job descriptions need to be honest, accurate and compliant, but they can be interesting and engaging, too.

The purpose of a job description is not just to outline a particular position’s main duties and responsibilities, but to inspire candidates to apply and become engaged with the district’s mission. When candidates feel a connection through your district from the moment they see your job posting, you’ll find you have higher-quality applicant pools, greater employee engagement and less turnover.

 

Job descriptions don’t just outline responsibilities. They inspire candidates to apply and engage.

Click To Tweet

 

So, make your job descriptions work for you: write them in a way that speaks to what job-seekers are looking for. Explain what you’re looking for in a candidate, and give them a taste of why your district is a great place to work. And don’t forget to include your district’s mission statement: The New Teacher Project (TNTP) found that 53 percent of teachers were attracted to their school because of the organization’s philosophy and mission.

Great job postings put your best foot forward.

When educators begin searching for a new job, they can be inundated with open positions. What are you doing to make your postings stand out? It’s not enough to post a vacancy with a brief or nonexistent job description — this is your first opportunity to show off your district’s brand to candidates.

Make sure that your job postings are memorable and cast your district in a good light. Showcase the many reasons why great educators want to work in your district by including them in the job description or linking to resources on your district’s website.

Here’s some hand-picked content you may enjoy

How to Build Your District’s Brand 

 

3 Districts to Learn From

What does this look like in practice? Check out a few recent job postings from K12JobSpot to see how other districts are leveraging job descriptions to entice more educators to apply.

Eagle Point School District 9

What we love: This job posting for a second-grade teacher at Table Rock Elementary opens with clear branding at the top, followed by a strong recruitment message: the district is located in a beautiful area, with a wealth of cultural and outdoor experiences just waiting to be discovered.

The district uses the opening paragraph to highlight their classroom initiatives, stability and benefits before laying out the position details, description and expectations. They have also included easily-accessible links to the district website, as well as a link to the Travel Southern Oregon site for job-seekers who aren’t from the area.

Minnetonka School District

What we love: Rather than introducing the district through text, Minnetonka included a video about their schools in a high school math teacher job posting. The use of media really stood out: after poring through what felt like hundreds of job postings, theirs was the only one to have a video directly embedded in the job description.

Oak Park and River Forest School District 200

What we love: This small district might only have one school, but they certainly aren’t short on information. Their job description for a family & consumer science teacher opens with a bullet-point overview of the position, followed by an engaging introduction that clearly defines the school’s progressive, success-driven philosophy.

It might be long, but it gives prospective applicants plenty of information to decide if this school is the right fit.

From Job Posting to Job Offer

Though revisiting your job descriptions is a great first step, don’t stop there! To continue to rise above the competition, it’s essential to understand the applicant’s journey, as well as which aspects of the recruiting and hiring process are most valued. What does that mean? Districts must look at the entire cycle from job postings to the job offer (and even beyond).

According to the Frontline Research & Learning Institute, over 90% of job seekers find the following outcomes important when searching for a job:

  • Job postings should clearly list required or preferred skills, credentials, and experience
  • Throughout the application process, job seekers want to be able to see the status of their application and hear from employers in a timely manner
  • Job seekers want to meet with an internal hiring decision manager, not a third party-recruiter
  • After receiving an offer, job seekers want onboarding instructions

 

Ready for more strategies to help your district stand out?

Check out Frontline Research & Learning Institute’s full research brief, “The State of the Instructional Teacher Shortage”, for up-to-date, data-driven insights that will help prepare school leaders with the information they need to attract quality staff to their district. Download Now

 

This article was originally published on March 12, 2018 and updated on November 8, 2020 for content relevance.

The Impacts of the K-12 Non-Instructional Labor Shortage on Student Success

When you think about the start and end to a student’s day, their first and last interaction with school (in many cases) is the school bus. In fact, according to the American School Bus Council, over 25,000,000 students across the United States rely on school buses to safely transport them to and from school daily.

Of course, this number heavily fluctuated throughout the pandemic as remote and hybrid learning became the norm. But as in-person learning has widely returned in the new school year, the number of school bus drivers across the country has dropped amid nationwide labor shortages of non-instructional K-12 staff.

With that in mind, one very significant question should come front and center: What exactly is the impact of the non-instructional labor shortage on student success?

Focusing in on transportation

Paint an early morning scene. School buses are cruising along from stop to stop, some traveling through rural, isolated areas, some through bustling urban neighborhoods. As the door swings open at each stop, students board the bus and begin their journey to school. But what happens when the bus doesn’t show up at a student’s stop, or arrives 20 minutes past the normal pick-up time? It may not be the first correlation you think of, but transportation has an impact on student success, and the national school bus driver shortage is disrupting student learning in more ways than one.

Let’s look at the numbers surrounding the shortage, as well as the impacts these numbers have on K-12 students.

The shortage

In a recent EdWeek survey, 86% of school and district administrators said they “don’t have enough candidates to fill open bus driver positions” and 79% said there are “fewer applicants for bus driver positions than last year.” This has already created scheduling challenges for many school districts’ transportation departments, leading to a high percentage of altered routes. In fact, the National Association for Pupil Transportation found that 91% of school districts have modified service to elementary schools, 90% to middle schools, and 83% to high schools.

When it comes to the number of openings districts have for bus drivers, the Frontline Research & Learning Institute (FRLI) found a large jump specifically in transportation job postings in 2021. See Chart 1 below.

Chart 1

 

A look across the U.S.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education was forced to step in to address the situation with a joint temporary action with the U.S. Department of Transportation. In various states, school district leaders have tried to alleviate the shortage with hiring incentives or pay raises but are still struggling to fill open positions and scrambling to alter service routes.

  • In Georgia, the Cobb County Board of Education increased bus driver pay by $5.25/hr at the beginning of the school year, but they are still 200 bus drivers short.
  • New Jersey is offering $35/hr, up from $26/hr in 2021, with full individual medical benefits for the first year, but district leaders are still reporting a shortage and fear the situation may not improve.
  • Chicago Public Schools had 400 vacant bus driver positions just four days before school returned.
  • In Texas, Comal ISD implemented several “no service zones” and cut 12-14 routes from service.
  • Massachusetts deployed the national guard to help get their students to school.

The impacts on student learning

When students don’t have access to the transportation they so heavily rely on to get to and from school, a myriad of challenges arise. Though district leaders are doing their best to alleviate the stresses of the national shortage, it’s clear there just aren’t enough bus drivers across the country, and student learning is being interrupted. Here are some of the impacts:

  • Educational inequity. Transportation is an essential component of educational access for disadvantaged students and under-resourced communities. According to the Bureau of Transportation, 70% of low-income families rely on the school bus as means of transportation for their children. What if a student’s delayed drop off gets them to school late and they miss out on the school breakfast program or critical instruction time? What if parents are forced to make alternative arrangements, but don’t have the resources to do so? The impact on educational equity is very real, and many are facing scenarios such as these on a regular basis.
  • Chronic tardiness is linked to student performance. The Department of Education has found that chronic absenteeism may prevent children from reaching early learning milestones and irregular attendance can increase the likelihood of a student dropping out. Ultimately, tardiness shouldn’t be forced upon a student.
  • Irregular or poor sleep patterns may result from altered bus routes or class schedules. If students are waking up early to make it to their bus stop, it can affect mental health and academic performance. The CDC reports early school start times can impact health, academic performance, and quality of life.
  • Extracurriculars are at risk. Getting student athletes to neighboring schools or districts for sports games also appears to be an issue. Some districts may be faced with the unfortunate decision of cancelling games, competitions, and other after-school events that students are involved in.

Focusing on mental health and well-being

Students may see their school bus driver every day, but not every student sees their school counselor every day (or even weekly). But no matter the frequency, both positions have direct impacts on student learning and success. So… what happens when there aren’t enough school counselors or psychologists and how does that gap impact students?

Over the last few years, K-12 students have been experiencing higher rates of anxiety, stress, and depression. These rates have only been exacerbated by the pandemic, and many districts have reported an increase in their students seeking in-school mental health services. However, with the nationwide shortage of school counselors, psychiatrists, and other mental health staff, some students may not be getting the mental health support or wellness guidance they seek.

What do the numbers say?

To outline how widespread and staggering the mental health staff shortage is, let’s analyze the recommended ratios per district compared to the current actual national ratios.

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a student-to-school-counselor ratio of 250:1 but the current ratio across the United States is a staggering 464:1. This translates to 8,000,000 students without access to a school counselor.

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) recommends a student-to-school-psychiatrist ratio of 500:1 but the current national ratio is 1211:1, with some states reaching much hire. Maine is the only that meets this ratio.


 

Hand-picked content:

Hiring Trends for Mental Health Providers in Schools
Read Now

The impacts on student learning

School counselors and psychiatrists are key to developing a healthy school environment, providing a safe space for learning, and helping students establish greater connections with their peers. So when students don’t have access to these staff members and their services, it’s a risk to both their mental health and their academic success. Like the bus driver shortage, this shortage poses a challenge for educational equity. Check out these facts from the American School Counselor Association:

  • “Black students are more likely than their White peers to identify their school counselor as the person who had the most influence on their thinking about postsecondary education.”
  • “Research links the student-to-school-counselor ratios that meet the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommendation in high-poverty schools to better academic outcomes for students, such as improved attendance, fewer disciplinary incidents, and higher graduation rates.”

What’s behind the non-instructional shortage?

The Frontline Research and Learning Institute (FRLI) recently published a research brief, “The Longitudinal Recruiting and Hiring Landscape for Non-Instructional Education Employees,” that analyzed data from 1,160 public school districts across 48 states. The brief explores the potential causes of the shortage across the country, the supply and demand of non-instructional staff, and how much time non-instructional positions have taken to be filled. The non-instructional job postings are categorized as one of the following: facilities, food services, office support and other administrative roles, outside of school activity programs, security/safety, substitutes, teacher’s assistant/aide, technology services, transportation services, and tutoring. Here is a summary of the key findings for what’s behind the non-instructional shortage:

  • There has been a slight increase in non-instructional job postings.
  • The number of applications per posting has continued to decrease.
  • The decreasing number of applications for open positions results in a reduced pool of qualified candidates.
  • The shortage is due to a supply issue (not enough candidates) rather than a demand issue (employees leaving the position).

What districts can do to combat the shortage

While the non-instructional staff shortage is widespread, there are actionable steps school leaders can take that may help minimize the number of non-instructional open positions. Here are 8 strategies outlined by the Frontline Research & Learning Institute to help navigate the non-instructional staff shortage:

  1. Technology can help expedite the recruiting process and easily post openings.
  2. Don’t wait for job seekers! Proactively reach out to candidates to diversify your pool.
  3. Ask your employees to identify potential non-instructional staff with community outreach.
  4. Make sure your district stands out! Ensure your job postings highlight culture, unique benefits, or professional learning opportunities.
  5. Provide your staff with feedback and support individual growth.
  6. Develop a culture where the voices of non-instructional staff are heard.
  7. Reduce friction for candidates and improve the efficiency of your processes.
  8. Frequently communicate and engage with potential candidates.

Frontline Recruiting & Hiring can help districts ensure that open non-instructional positions are being filled in a timely manner. With Frontline’s job board, K12JobSpot, your district can easily reach thousands of non-instructional candidates across the country. Are you ready to combat the non-instructional staff shortage to ensure student success and wellbeing? You can learn more about Frontline Recruiting & Hiring here.

Interested in more on the non-instructional labor shortage?

Check out Frontline Research & Learning Institute’s full research brief, “The Longitudinal Recruiting and Hiring Landscape for Non-Instructional Education Employees,” for an in-depth look into the data and more recommendations to help fill these positions.
Download Now

 

Front & Center: Michele Trongaard

If you don’t work in the field of school business in Texas, it’s understandable that you might not know who our guest today is. But within the Lone Star State, inside school business offices, her credentials and experience speak for themselves, and she was kind enough to share some of her thoughts for our “Front & Center” series, in which we highlight school administration rock stars and the work they’re doing.

Michele Trongaard is the Associate Superintendent of Business and Finance at Mansfield ISD. After working in the corporate accounting world, she is now beginning her 20th year in public education. Here are just a few of the notable moments in her career:

  • Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Registered Texas School Business Administrator (RTSBA), and an Administrator in School Finance and Operations (SFO)
  • Bachelor’s in Accounting from the University of Texas at Dallas, and Master’s degree from Concordia University in School Finance and Operations
  • President of the Texas Association of School Business Officials in 2020
  • Pilot member of the Government Finance Officers Assocation’s Alliance for Excellence in School District Budgeting
  • Recipient of the Association of School Business Officials’ 2019 Pinnacle Achievement Award for School Business Innovation
  • One of the first in Texas to use Frontline Education’s Analytics suite (formerly known as Forecast5)

Michele is married to Jeff with a blended family of six children whose occupations include Membership Coordinator for nationwide sonographers, medical dosimetrist, computer software engineer at Microsoft, IB 3-D Art teacher at Uplift Education in Dallas, one pursuing animal research while working on her masters, and one in her last year of nursing school at the University of Texas at Arlington. She’s excited to become a grandma in December, and with another grandchild on the way in March! Besides being with her family, her favorite things to do are traveling, hiking, teaching and reading.

What was your first job in education?

My very first job in public education began in 2003 as an Accountant for Wylie ISD, located in a fast-growing suburb of Dallas, Texas. I served in the roles of Payroll and Benefits Manager, Director of Finance, and Chief Financial Officer, and now am Associate Superintendent of Finance and Operations. I’m that annoying one that has always asked questions about why something was done a certain way. Now, I can give back by answering those questions others are asking.

If you could give any advice to yourself at the beginning of your career, what would it be?

Listen more and talk less!

What is one skill every CFO in K-12 should have?

Hire the right people! I could not do my job without having the right team in the right place. I have been fortunate to hire some extremely talented people.

What is the value of seeking a mentor as a school district CFO or Business department leader? Who have been your mentors over the years?

Seeking a mentor is an absolute must in the school business official’s world. I have been grateful to connect with many other peers through the Texas Association of School Business Officials’ training and community forums that allow me to run ideas and collaborate to find the best solutions. My mentors have included Dr. Kimberley Cantu, Dr. Sean Scott, Donald Williams, Jeff Brogden, David Wright, Jennifer Young, Dr. Jennifer Stoecker, Dr. Jeannie Stone, Karen Smith, Randy McDowell, David Pate, Dr. David Vinson, Dr. Kim Spicer, Mr. Scott Winn, Amy Boerner, Brian Miller, Omar Garcia, Amanda Brownson, Janèt Spurgeon, Dr. Karen Wiesman, Dr. Tracy Ginsburg, Becky Bunte, David Marx, Elaine Cogburn, Jennifer Land, Shay Adams, Dr. Jennifer DuPlessis, Brent Ringo, Byron Bryant, Darrell Dodds, Brian Carter, Scott Wreher, Robb Welch, Katie Bowman, Brenda Mize, Diana Sircar, Kimberly Smith, Julie Novak, Monica Irvin, Ed Harper, Sheryl Moulden, Lindy Finley, Wes Eversole, Brenda Richmond, Kelly Penny, Bill Sutter, Claire Hertz, Carol MacLeod, Matt Bubness, Shayne Kavanagh, John Hutchison, Travis Zander… gosh, I think I could keep on going for hours and I’m sure I’ve left several off.

How does using data and analytics help you plan for and address challenges in your school district?

Using data and analytics helps to ensure I am maximizing our funds while being a good steward of our taxpayer dollars. Not only does it help monitor by function and object code, it can identify the outliers when benchmarking with peer districts as well as projections for the current fiscal year and budget planning. An outstanding feature when I teach with Travis Zander from Frontline Education is sharing their State of the District story and Economic Profile. Having those discussions about what makes up those numbers, and knowing if it is something the district should look into, is priceless. It tells their own story — and no two stories are exactly alike!

What is the best creative idea you have had as a CFO that has made a difference in your role?

Getting out from behind my desk and visiting principals at campuses! Sharing specific data analytic reports in Comparative Analytics from enrollment history, test scores with cost per student grid amongst their peers, and budget by object code over the years is extremely valuable. Having that dialogue about finance and academics to see if there are any concerns and what support is needed, along with building those relationships, has been one of my best strategies as a CFO.

What will change most in education over the next 10 years?

Innovation! Without a doubt, technology will change and continue to change how we all learn and operate as a school district. I always think of the Jetsons when thinking about the future. Does that mean a student will be able to push a button in the cafeteria and have the food just appear? Hopefully, they’ll still receive a smile in the delivery of that food that our Student Nutrition staff does.

What are you most hopeful about for the future of education?

That our future generations will learn faster than us and be the ones to take care of us. They will find those solutions that are still missing: a cure for cancer, addressing climate change, tackling mental health problems, and making the world a peaceful place for all.

Advisor Spotlight: Dr. CyLynn Braswell

Of the things we’re most grateful for at Frontline, at the top of the list is the chance to come alongside school districts in their work to provide the best educational opportunities for every student.

One way we do this is with our team of Advisors. These talented folks, many of whom have years or even decades of real-world experience working in school districts, are uniquely qualified to help districts solve modern problems.

Dr. CyLynn Braswell is a student data guru with over two decades of experience in the field. In this video, she talks about her love for data and analytics, along with some of her favorite stories from Frontline clients.

Check out our spotlight with CyLynn below.


Related Resources

Want to dig deeper into analytics? Check out some of these resources:


Front & Center: Superintendent James Craig

Our formative years in school look different from person to person, but one thing is true for all of us: we owe a hard-to-quantify debt to the people who work in education. For most of us, teachers immediately spring to mind — and rightly so! Yet countless others also work to make sure schools can operate. In this series, we’re highlighting some of these everyday superheroes and asking them to share their expertise.

James Craig is in his fourth year as the superintendent at Sibley-Ocheyedan Community Schools in Sibley, Iowa. This year marks his 25th year in education. With a background in music education, he also served for four years as a principal at Southwest Valley High School in Corning, Iowa. Married with three kids, he is also a volunteer church musician, a member of the Rotary and the Sibley Chamber, and enjoys golf and community service.

What was your first job in education?

My first position was elementary and high school band at North Kossuth CSD in Swea City, Bancroft and Ledyard, IA. It was a unique situation to follow Miss Kaufman, who had had a successful program, especially in marching band. The color guard instructor, Betty Lou, trained me more than anyone else in how to relate to students, work with others on a team, and work through conflict.

I learned a great deal from each of the positions I served in, met my wife while working at Orient-Macksburg, and developed my leadership skills at Nodaway Valley. I coached play and speech, was webmaster, and served as activities director. This experience allowed me to see several different aspects of how things worked outside my classroom.

At Nodaway Valley, I was a member of the curriculum lead team and worked with teams of teachers to learn, implement, and evaluate our professional development. It was at NV that I was encouraged by a principal to go after my master’s in educational leadership. I had never thought about being an administrator up to that point, but after the first class in the cohort I was hooked.

Southwest Valley High School (Corning, IA) hired me to be their principal in 2015. I was excited to take my leadership skills out of just my classroom or just my small teacher group and work with staff and students at the building level. During this time, I did a lot of the same things that I did in the classroom more extensively. I led professional development, worked with teacher groups and a curriculum lead team, and worked to develop a building climate where staff and students felt safe and supported. This work at the building level fueled my desire to reach out to bigger and bigger groups of people. Working toward a superintendent certification seemed like a natural step in the progression and achieving this position has started to fill my bucket for professional needs. It is a thrill to come to work every day to work on building a destination district for our stakeholders and communities.

If you could give any advice to yourself at the beginning of your career, what would it be?

Build relationships first. They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. All the clichés. 😁 Seriously, making sure people know you are seeking out authentic communication and intently listening to those you meet are two of the most important things, even before content knowledge and teaching techniques in most cases.

Avoid acting like you know everything. Go back to relationships. Make connections with other employees in the building, including secretaries, custodians, and other staff. Support the other things going on in the school, not just what happens in your own classroom. Be a good team member and student advocate.

Ask questions. Any administrator I’ve ever had has wanted me to ask questions instead of messing up something important right away or just not doing it at all because I didn’t know what to do. As a music teacher, I had to know about registration dates, membership fees, purchase orders, where to look for money and who to ask for it. Ask questions, and ask again. We have great mentoring setups now with mentor/mentee programs and TLC support positions – when I started it was just the principal. It’s scary to develop a supportive relationship with the person that is evaluating you. Now you have a mentor, a buddy or instructional coach, department colleagues, veteran teachers who just know the ropes…new teachers have a team that can include the principal, which gives so many more options for collaboration and collegiality.

What is one skill every superintendent should have?

One of my favorite quotes is from President Eisenhower, who is credited with saying, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

That may seem somewhat manipulative, but I prefer to think of it as a negotiating skill. You have to be able to argue both sides of a situation, then advocate for the side you believe is the right solution for your students. I believe every superintendent should be able to have a conversation with someone that disagrees with them and come out in agreement for the best solution in the end. When you are trying to implement an initiative, you have to be able to get buy-in and see the project through.

What was your biggest “win” over the last year, and how did you achieve it?

My biggest win was getting a new pay structure approved for teachers, providing equal raises for all teachers instead of a stepladder format that rewarded new teachers and discouraged veteran teachers. There is now a negotiated amount that teachers receive, and a bonus for those teachers who have already completed their master’s. We also eliminated lanes and consolidated lane increases to reward teachers sooner for working toward their master’s degree. The plan is also forecasted to be more cost-effective for the school district than a stepladder pay scale. When it’s a win for everyone, it’s a big win.

How does using data and analytics help you plan for and address challenges in your school district?

I appreciate the ability to show my board finance team what happens to our unspent balance when we spend different funds and talk about negotiations. I can show what will happen based on our projected revenues and expenditures, and a more realistic scenario with projected unspent balance carryover. As a newer superintendent, [Frontline Analytics] has helped me learn about school finance and feel confident in our financial position. What should have been the most difficult thing about transitioning to the superintendency has been one of the most successful parts of my term!

What is the best creative idea you have had as a superintendent that has made a difference in your role?

My superintendent’s vlog gets me into classrooms and around the district more than I might be without this tool. This is the fourth season of the vlog, with over 100 episodes in publication so far on YouTube. I interview new teachers, students, and guests, as well as provide pictures and updates on what is going on in the district. I can take the pictures and videos, upload to my computer, then do the “anchoring” from the desk in my office. Not only has it been a good communication tool between the district and our stakeholders, but as I mentioned before, I get into classrooms more frequently and with deeper intent than if I just stopped in to say hello.

I also played Santa. That was pretty fun. I don’t sing like the one superintendent who has a new song for each of his weather announcements. Me before coffee isn’t very entertaining.

What will change most in education over the next 10 years?

At the state and national level, public education is going through a transformation — the most significant one I’ve seen in my 25 years in education. We have so many virtual distance education opportunities now that I think a completely online school on a local level will not be out of the question. I’m sad to see this become a reality, as there is no substitute for a quality parent-teacher-student relationship and society doesn’t know how to create that relationship on the other side of a screen.

What are you most hopeful about for the future of education?

Our students at Sibley-Ocheyedan have survived the effects of the pandemic and are on the other side with little to no loss of learning. Our teachers, support staff and administrators have worked tirelessly to get through the toughest time in education any of them have experienced to date. Now that the pandemic is behind us, I am hopeful we can get back to education, back to increasing student achievement, and back to a culture that supports and holds up our public education system.

Preparing Substitutes for the Classroom

It’s a story familiar to many school leaders: teachers are absent, and there aren’t enough substitute teachers to meet the need. Classes are combined, other teachers give up their planning periods, and paraprofessionals or administrators are compelled to fill in. In any case, student learning is derailed, and other staff lose valuable time to plan and complete their own work. It’s not sustainable. Before the pandemic further exacerbated the substitute shortage, over 4 million teacher absences went unfilled nationally. That means more than one in every five teacher absences had no substitute. This translates to about 250,000,000 days of individual student learning that were disrupted — in less than a single school year.

What can state education leaders do to ease the substitute teacher shortage burden? Some states have recently addressed their substitute teacher shortage with legislative changes, a modification to substitute teacher licensing requirements, and a partnership with Frontline.

That partnership has resulted in over 4,000 new substitutes who are eligible to work in the classroom. But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. Let’s dig into how we got here.

Barriers to Entry

To exacerbate the teacher shortage, many schools face a substitute shortage, too. While it’s crucial that substitutes are qualified to be in the classroom, aspiring substitutes face extensive state requirements, creating a significant barrier to entry. To apply for a substitute teaching license, state laws require an individual to complete anywhere from 24 to 60 semester hours (or more) of college-level credit. However, these requirements don’t always specify the type of coursework needed to fulfill credit hours, meaning there’s no guarantee that the substitutes meeting those state requirements have taken relevant coursework. In Illinois, the state requirement for a short-term substitute license is 60 credit hours. This requirement may serve as a barrier to entry for many individuals because according to a recent survey conducted by the Illinois Association of Regional School Superintendents (IARSS), 96% of school districts have cited a scarcity of substitute teachers and 90% reported the substitute shortage continues to get worse.

So how can school districts overcome these barriers to entry for future substitutes to ensure student learning goes uninterrupted?

Fast Fact: According to a recent EdWeek survey, 77% of school district
leaders across the nation reported difficulties in hiring enough substitutes.

Enhancing Accessibility for Substitutes

For the states who chose to partner with Frontline to address this national problem, the first step was to make substitute certification more accessible. Some state leaders have passed an amendment and emergency rule to approve an alternative route to become a substitute teacher through completion of a training course.

To ensure the training was high-quality, these school boards developed a rubric to determine the criteria and then sought out a partner to provide the training content. Frontline Education is a partner that offers individuals the ability to obtain their certification to become a substitute teacher in select states through completing Frontline Substitute Teacher Training, as approved by the state departments.

The training consists of twelve comprehensive online courses specifically designed for substitute teachers. Each course aligns to teaching standards and covers topics such as classroom management, instructional strategies, and supporting students with special needs. Upon completion, individuals receive a Frontline Certificate of Completion demonstrating their readiness to obtain a substitute teacher license. Not only will substitutes have the confidence of knowing they’re prepared to enter the classroom, but districts will also have the assurance that the most qualified substitutes are filling teacher absences.

Frontline Substitute Teacher Training’s self-paced courses cover the following topics:
  • Leadership
  • Working with At-Risk Students
  • Professionalism & Ethics
  • Diversity Awareness
  • Legal Obligations
  • Classroom Management
  • Instructional Strategies
  • Working with Students with Special Needs
We think you’ll enjoy this hand-picked content:

What’s behind the national substitute teacher shortage?
Read Now

The Results

In the first six months, over 4,000 individuals enrolled in the Frontline Substitute Teacher Training, adding 4,000 educators to the eligible substitute teacher pool. Performance scores for substitutes, determined by ratings from the classroom teacher, show no difference between the traditional and alternative certification pathways. Providing consistent training to all incoming substitute teachers ensures substitutes have the skills they need to be successful. In turn, school and district leaders have the confidence of knowing the individuals that staff their classrooms are qualified, and students have a prepared substitute teacher — so their learning continues uninterrupted even when their teacher is absent.

We think you’ll enjoy this hand-picked content:

Does using a mobile app impact substitute fill rates?
Read Now

How is your district navigating the teacher and substitute shortage? Check out these resources for more information on how you can take action.
 
Podcast: No Substitute for Customer Service

Great Teachers Matter! Here’s How to Keep Them

Explain It Like I’m 9: The Substitute Teacher Shortage

The Real Substitute Teacher Shortage: A Lack of Engagement

A Small (Yet Powerful) Tool for Consistency of Care in Your District

When you think about templates, you might not imagine the most exciting work. Even the word “template” feels a little dry. And because templates are all about making processes universal, you might not imagine individualized care.

And yet, templates are a way to empower school health professionals to focus less on paperwork, and more on students, something that benefits both the provider and the patient. So yes, it is totally reasonable to get excited about templates.

“Yes, it is totally reasonable to get excited about health templates. And here’s why. #schoolhealth #schoolnurse”

Click To Tweet

Student Mental Health in Crisis: Are Schools Ready?

We spoke with ten people on the front lines of education and asked them what the future holds.
Read Now

Districts are facing countless challenges everyday: Student mental health is in crisis, there’s an ongoing school nurse shortage, and schools are being asked to provide greater care for students. According to a survey from the National Education Association, “90% of [teachers] say feeling burned out is a serious problem.” That statistic might not feel new to you, but you might have assumptions about teachers’ ideas for addressing that burnout. Interestingly, two top ways teachers suggested to address educator burnout were providing mental health support and eliminating paperwork with 94% and 90% support respectively.

Burnout is a challenge that so many working people face, for all kinds of reasons. And that diversity of reasons makes it challenging to tackle. There’s no magic cure or easy way to make the problem disappear.

Field Trip: Beating Teacher Burnout

Assistant Principals Adam Brown, Ed.D. and Basil Marin share their experiences with teacher burnout and what administrators can do to fight it in their schools to give teachers the support they need – regardless of whether they’re new teachers or have been in the classroom for years.
Read Now

But rather than feeling overwhelmed by the challenge ahead, let’s flip the script. Let’s make incremental positive changes that add up over time for your staff and providers.

Templates, specifically those you’ll find in an electronic health records system, offer an opportunity to cut down on unnecessary paperwork for providers while making the necessary forms (and the providers who fill them out) more effective.

Accurate documentation is foundational to a school nurse’s success, and with so much on school nurses’ plates, templates purpose-built for K-12 school nursing can go a long way in making their day-to-day work lives better.

So how do templates relate to consistency of care?

To achieve consistency of care, you’ll need effective communication, collaboration, and coordination. And, as you might have guessed, templates can help you with each of those areas.

“Templates, specifically those you’ll find in an electronic health records system, offer an opportunity to cut down on unnecessary paperwork for providers while making the necessary forms (and the providers who fill them out) more effective.”

Communication

Let’s explore the idea of communication from two different perspectives, based on the student’s needs, and how templates can impact the student’s care.
A Student Returning from a Residential Treatment Center

If a student has spent time in a residential treatment center, they’ll enter their school with a detailed plan of care. It’s entirely possible — and even likely — that a host of educators, providers, and health professionals will be responsible to carry out that plan at the school.

Of course, documenting those encounters will make supporting that student even more effective, allowing the team to communicate about the support the student is receiving.

Without operational definitions to keep everyone on the same page, students’ behaviors and conditions could be described differently based on the person they saw last.

For this student, templates can help ensure that no step in their care plan is missed. Templates also help the district with state reporting so that providers don’t have to keep a mental checklist of what to include in session notes.

A Student with Diabetes

If a student has a medical condition like diabetes, templates are helpful to their providers, too.

Whether it’s documenting a quick encounter in the nurse’s office or pulling up medication history for the student, it’s crucial to be able to locate historical data for the child quickly.

When every encounter is documented in the same way, it’s much easier — and faster — to absorb that information and be able to act accordingly.

And templates are designed to do exactly that: make it easy to document encounters in the same format every time the child is seen, so even if you have a substitute nurse for the day, they’ll be better prepared to offer quality care to the child.

School health providers communicate with so many stakeholders on any given day. Communicating with parents and guardians is central to that work. Utilizing templates and having an easy, secure way to share them with a child’s caretakers helps build positive relationships.

Clarity is intricately linked to communication, and if you’ve read any Brené Brown, you’ve likely heard or seen the phrase “clear is kind.” Templates, in all their simple glory, are clear. Templates, in their own special (and sometimes dry) way, are kind.

Health templates, in all their simple glory, are clear. Templates, in their own special way, are kind. #schoolhealth #schoolnurse

Click To Tweet

Collaboration

Although we’re moving on to collaboration, we’re not necessarily moving away from communication, because communication is so integral to effective collaboration. Take interpretation, for instance.

Interpretation is on the flip side of documentation. If a student is seeing multiple specialists in a school, each specialist might be in a situation where they are interpreting the documentation from another specialist’s encounter with that student. Or, thinking about a substitute nurse, they might be in a situation where they are scanning a student’s record before prescribing medication.

Templates can help create clarity around health protocols, vital information, and trends to ensure that no matter the number of specialists involved in a student’s care, everyone is set up for success to better support that student.

Collaboration also happens internally in the district, especially when you consider the Medicaid billing process. Your templates should provide direction around the kinds of information needed to submit claims to Medicaid. And if you’re planning to take advantage of something like school-based Medicaid expansion through Free Care, you’re going to need detailed plans of care to support claims.

For some students, the school nurse is the only health professional they will see over the course of a year. According to a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, “more than one in ten (10.2%) uninsured children went without needed care due to cost in 2019 compared to less than 1% of children with private insurance. Furthermore, one in five (20.0%) uninsured children had not seen a doctor in the past year compared to 3.5% for both children with public and private coverage.” If your district has a higher population of uninsured students, your school nurses and other health professionals may experience greater pressure. Reducing paperwork is one simple way to reduce the pressure on these vital members of your school community.

Enjoying this post?

You might enjoy How DC Public Schools Uses Student Data to Support Mental Health
Special educators & administrators share their biggest challenges. Read Now

Coordination

Both of our first areas of focus — communication and collaboration — are required for excellent coordination. When you have a plan of care, something you might see with students coming from residential treatment centers, you might notice that those plans are not always supported in your SIS. Especially when you’re dealing with sensitive counseling session information, your SIS might not be equipped to handle the nuance needed for mental and behavioral health plans.

So even if your SIS does offer templates as part of a health module, they might not be sufficient depending on your district’s needs.

With the ongoing staffing shortage, your students may encounter different educators who have different specialties. The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) recommends a ratio of 1 school psychologist per 500 students. In contrast, the current NASP data estimates an actual ratio of 1 per 1,211 students on average. That means that multiple people of varying experience levels will likely be supporting students, and supporting students’ health might not be their primary role in the school. That makes it all the more important that they are equipped with easy ways to document their encounters thoroughly to maintain compliance.

Five Ways School Nurses Can Increase Their Sphere of Influence

How school nurses can take action in their communities.  Read Now

Of course, your district’s experience might be entirely different. If you’re in a larger district, you might be facing the challenges associated with running your own clinics and having more people involved at different stages of each process. Data integrity and uniformity can become crucial in those instances. Conversely, in a small district, you might have one person responsible for a wide array of processes, meaning they’d benefit from shortcuts that don’t negatively impact the care they offer to students. No matter the size of your district, whether you’re an urban or rural school, or the unique challenges you face, your goal is to provide every student with consistent care. Templates can make it easier to achieve that goal.

How you can support consistency of care

As you might have guessed, we’re fans of templates as a way to support consistency of care for a few reasons:

  1. They make health providers’ jobs easier
  2. They help your district maintain compliance
  3. They save time for both providers and administrators
  4. They help providers offer excellent care to students

Those are just a few reasons to consider implementing templates if you haven’t already. And if you have already implemented templates, don’t forget to take a look at all of the ways you can use them. If you use a system like Frontline School Health Management, you’ll find so many wonderful uses.

Frontline School Health Management has so many wonderful features, and templates are just the beginning. You can learn more about Frontline School Health Management here.

3 Ways to Demystify Benefits Open Enrollment

Every year, benefits season rolls around. And every year, HR departments rev up their engines and kick into high gear to prepare their districts for open enrollment. Though the specific timeframe for enrollment may vary by state, the amount of hard work and preparation that goes into it does not.

But when it comes to navigating benefits, sometimes it feels like wandering through a thick layer of fog with no clear path to take. From insurance jargon to sorting through stacks of paperwork, benefits enrollment can leave employees feeling dazed and confused. The process is complex and complicated for all parties involved, so it’s no surprise that benefit literacy is generally low. According to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans (IFEBP), nearly half of employees in the United States don’t understand their benefits.

A closer look into benefit literacy:

Source: Voya Financial Consumer Survey

With that statistic in mind, it’s important to ask: how can school districts relieve the confusion their employees face and the arduous tasks their HR teams tackle during benefit season?

One district, Spring Grove Area School District, automated their processes into one system to make benefits open enrollment a whole lot simpler for their employees. One teacher described the new process as “settling for my brain, my heart, and my wallet.” How can you do the same for your teachers?

Communicate Clearly, Concisely, and Creatively

Employees need a detailed understanding of what benefits they’re choosing to feel secure and calm about the process. To make selections that suit their personal and familial needs best, they’ll need information and support. Think about the “three c’s” as you prepare to communicate effectively with your staff:

  • Be clear: Insurance jargon is confusing. What’s an out-of-pocket maximum? What does HSA-eligible even mean? Remove ambiguity wherever you can. Speak and write in the simplest of terms.
  • Be concise: If your staff receives a massive benefit handbook, will they actually read it? Keep it simple, keep it short, and if you need to share a long document, find a way to review it in simple terms.
  • Be creative: Don’t be afraid to mix up your delivery methods. Every individual has a different learning style. Cover all the bases by offering multimodal and multi-channel communications — varying your methods will increase engagement.

Offer Support Beyond the Open Enrollment Period

Open enrollment may be seasonal, but benefits sure aren’t — it’s crucial to keep the conversation going all year long. In doing so, districts can help their employees stay engaged with their benefits, understand how their annual plan works, and better prepare them for the next open enrollment season.

And when it comes to qualifying life events, employees need easily-accessible support at any given time. By offering year-round support, employees will know exactly where to turn, and frustrating scenarios like this can be avoided all together. Throughout the year:

  • Create a 12-month communication calendar: This is a great opportunity to visually outline what conversation is the most valuable to your employees each month. Perhaps it’s a back-to-school annual physical reminder or a telehealth information session information session during flu season.
  • Promote a wellness campaign: Get your staff on a health kick with events like a nutritional challenge, an employee field day, or a meditation-station.
  • Get feedback: Generate a survey and ask your employees what’s working well vs. what’s not. Do they want more creative resources? Do they want monthly reminders on how their benefit plan actually works?
  • Send reminders throughout the year: If health care plans offer free preventative care such as vaccines, screenings, checkups, nurse resources, health tools, and other options even before they meet their deductible, schedule regular communications reminding employees to get the most from their benefits.

Hand-picked content for you:

Are you ready to evaluate your benefits enrollment process and highlight areas for improvement?

Download the Workbook

Ditch Paper — Go Digital

If your open enrollment season is still a series of manual processes, your HR team might:

  • Find it hard to locate records
  • Struggle to read illegible handwriting on forms
  • Waste time updating inaccurate employee information,
  • Face redundant data entry

Not only that, but stacks of paperwork can often feel daunting and even tamper the enrollment experience for new hires. So it’s time to reflect on a few questions:

  1. How much time does your team spend transcribing written data?
  2. How many pages is your employee benefits packet?
  3. How long do you spend tracking down or updating employee information?

Are your answers a little (or a lot) higher than you would like them to be? If so, it’s probably time to ditch the paper. When you make the switch to a digital benefits process, your district will cut costs and save time, and employees will have a fuller understanding of benefits enrollment.

Benefits of Going Digital:

  • With self-enrollment, employees can make their own benefits decisions
  • The employee experience is improved through increased flexibility
  • HR teams can provide a greater level of support to their employees
  • Countless trees are saved through more sustainable processes

Do More With Frontline HRMS

Are you ready to start your journey toward demystifying benefits enrollment in your district? Frontline HRMS can help.

With Frontline, staff will be able to digitally…

  • Select and enroll in benefits packages
  • Adjust life/qualifying events as situations change
  • Change contact information with the click of a button
  • Access pertinent information pertaining to individual plans

Learn more about benefits management with Frontline HRMS.

“Trying to manage benefits without a system is, very honestly, impossible. [With a system] you can keep track of information, put the decision-making in the hands of the employees, allow them to make their own selections, and produce the information about those selections to various vendors to update the plan selection.”

Angie Doll
Director of Human Resources

Erin Shelton

Erin is a writer and member of the award-winning content team at Frontline Education. With experience in education, she is passionate about creating content that helps to support and impact the growth of both students and teachers.

How District Leaders Can Address Challenges with the Power of Analytics

In today’s K-12 landscape, school leaders face a host of challenges that seem to have only been exacerbated since the pandemic. Ongoing barriers to a quality education workforce, interrupted learning and widening academic gaps, increased social emotional need, inequitable access to opportunity, uncertain stimulus-boosted budgets and heightened pressure to demonstrate meaningful growth and change are just a handful of important strategies that remain top of mind for school leaders as they work to establish, measure, and refine plans that will positively impact student outcomes.

As a way to combat these challenges, many school leaders rely on data to guide the planning process. Data usage within K-12 really runs the gamut, from districts reviewing stock reports at the highest level all the way to Chief Financial Officers drilling down into financial granularity on a daily basis. And while many school districts may be rich with data, they oftentimes find themselves wading through piles of information, lacking strategic insights that could help to establish benchmarks, accelerate planning, and guide decision-making.

The Role of Analytics

Analytics can change all that and have the potential to significantly impact how we manage and deliver education by identifying efficiencies, targeting financial and student-focused opportunities, and ensuring teacher quality, among other things. Specifically for financial leaders, leveraging easy-to-use yet sophisticated analytics tools can easily examine and analyze data to determine how things are trending, and where they are going, while also having the ability to provide evidence-based, digestible reporting to stakeholders within a district.


Stock accounting system reports are often too difficult for stakeholders to understand. Having data analytics systems in place enable the CFO to quickly provide easy-to-read and understand reports with the click of a button.

Providing a multi-year forecast is imperative to determining the path to maintaining a district’s fiscal stability. Financial Analytics solutions help districts efficiently build annual budgets and multi-year projections and model scenarios and future impacts to increase transparency and ensure their budget stays on track despite the impact of COVID-19. As important, a forecast rooted in data and analytics can help protect a district from the impact of unstable or unsustainable revenue sources, such as ESSER funding. While a district may have the cash to afford something in the near term, how will it impact the long-term budget of the district? What revenue streams will the district need to support the operations of the district? How can a district easily model different scenarios and illustrate the financial impact?


The visual above illustrates how school districts can use data analytic systems to quickly analyze the impact specific financial decisions will have on the fiscal stability of a school district. In this case, the visual is showing the property millage needed to overcome the projected budget shortfall.

Budget and financial analytics will certainly help to contribute to a well-thought-out, comprehensive plan. As financial leaders conduct the financial planning and monitoring process, whether it be monthly, quarterly, or annually, it may also be helpful to assess how one school district stands in comparison to another based on common districts characteristics such as size, location, or demographics. By studying comparisons and identifying contrasts, school leaders can develop a deep understanding of contrasting performance and variations at the district and school level, which may reveal new insights that drive new decisions.


Having the ability to quickly select, filter and visualize data enables school districts to gain valuable insight. The graphic above shows how a school district can quickly inquire about the compensation levels of their staff in relation to other school districts in their area.

Analytics in Action

Analytics tools provide school leaders with the ability to see and understand macro and micro indicators, and also provide access to historical content as a way of evaluating past, current, and future trends.

Bill Wade, Chief Financial Officer at Mentor Schools in Ohio, recently adopted analytics in his organization to help set and drive strategy. Using financial, budget, and comparative analytics, the newly appointed CFO was able to establish a formal budgeting system that would address the organization’s short-term needs, but also help to maintain long-term fiscal stability. Wade has become an avid user of the analytics platforms, relying on some of the tools, such as forecasting and scenario reporting, on a weekly-to-monthly basis to support budgetary decision-making and to increase communications transparency with the Board and community.

Wade commented, “Working with Frontline Analytics has empowered me to understand our budget and spending behaviors so we can make informed decisions for the betterment of our schools. The data allows us to see what is on track, what we can and cannot control, and most importantly, how to be more efficient so our operations are sound and have the ability to thrive. Frontline’s Analytics platforms are easy to use, help school leaders evaluate data in an efficient matter, and the reporting is digestible and compelling for all audiences. There’s also a tremendous amount of advisory and professional development that comes along with the tools. I can’t imagine being able to do my job successfully without the support of data and analytics.”

Why School Leaders Should Embrace Analytics

Nuances in K-12 education make it hard for districts to adopt the larger or more generic analytics tools. This can be a barrier to entry for many districts that don’t have the resources or know-how to manage complex data systems. It’s important to use tools designed specifically to manage K-12 data. Having the ability to use data in the manner in which a school needs, with the click of one or two buttons to preview trend data, make projections, and produce professional, visually compelling reports, is invaluable. Analytics tools help to automate processes around the financial activity of a district, which should ultimately help to increase efficiencies so leaders can continue to focus on strategic initiatives that benefit students.


Automated visuals, like the one above, easily allow the CFO to determine how their current projected cash flow is trending in relation to the forecast last approved by the BOE. It also allows the CFO to determine what further revenue and expense areas they may need to research.

Reprinted with permission from the Ohio School Boards Association.

Getting School District Employees Buy-in for A New Time Tracking System

Sometimes, change is hard — even when it’s for the better. It’s relatively easy to get staff buy-in for things like dress-down days, unlimited printing or discount programs. But other changes can be a little harder to rally your employees around, even when the switch is integral to the school district’s operations.

Take time tracking, for example. Having an accurate picture of employee time is a key part of staying compliant with labor laws and managing the district’s expenses, but moving to a new time tracking system is rarely on any employee’s wish list. Even so, you want to make sure that your people are on board as much as possible when you make a change that affects their work day.

So, how can you make a new time tracking system a win-win for you and your employees?

1. Be open about why you’re moving to the new time tracking system

People always appreciate honesty, so be upfront about the reasons why the district is making the change. If it’s to keep costs under control, it’s okay to say so — everyone knows that school district budgets are tight, but it’s not as well-known that organizations overpay by an average 1.2% due to payroll errors. And according to research by the American Payroll Association, payroll errors could cost anywhere from 1% to 8% of your annual gross payroll if your organization uses paper-based time cards. So, explain that moving to an electronic time tracking system will save the district money, without needing to make cuts.

Or, you may be moving to a new system to improve accountability. Maybe you’ve found that employees work additional hours off the clock in order to get their work done, and need to make sure that all of your employees are compensated fairly for their time. Or perhaps you’ve had issues with “buddy-punching”, where one employee clocks in on another’s behalf. Consider being transparent about the effect this behavior has had on the school district’s finances.

2. Make sure you pick a time tracking system that works for employees and the school district

First and foremost: when you move to a new time tracking system, make sure that it’s the best one for the district. It can be demoralizing for employees (and your payroll office) to jump from one system to another, to another, and yet another ad infinitum in search of the right one. So, when you choose the new system, make sure it’ll meet everyone’s needs.

It should be flexible enough to work with K-12’s unique needs, like different employee groups, or staff who hold multiple positions or work in multiple locations. At the same time, it needs to put you in control of who can clock in where, or how.

For employees in particular, one of the most visible parts of time tracking is actually clocking in and out. The most effective clock-in/clock-out device for one group may not be best for another, so choose a system that can work with a variety of time capture methods.

Obligatory vendor note:

Time & Attendance from Frontline lets you use any compatible time-tracking device or method that works for your district: electronic timesheets, proximity scanners, biometrics, a mobile app and more. Bonus: you can use different methods for different employee groups — whatever works best for your district’s needs.

3. Communicate!

Throughout the process, communicate with your employees. In addition to being open about why the district is moving to the new system, share the reasons why you chose the new system, and address their concerns. Maybe you heard from bus drivers that the clock-in method used for other employees wasn’t working as well for them, and the new system makes sure that everyone’s needs are met.

Remember that communication goes both ways. In addition to sharing the reasons behind the change, make sure that employees feel heard. You may find they have valuable feedback that improves the overall process, and staff will feel included and respected.

Thinking of moving to a better system for tracking and managing employee time? Check out Time & Attendance. As part of Frontline Absence & Time, it works with Absence Management (formerly Aesop) to give you the full picture of employee attendance.

Learn More

A School Bus Trip to New School Year Success: School Health Edition

Growing up in Massachusetts, the school year kicked off around Labor Day in early September. I’d go to bed with my first day of school outfit picked out. And since I walked to school each day in elementary school, living just a quarter mile away, by the time I entered sixth grade I couldn’t wait to ride the bus: what would it be like?

In the new-to-me middle school building, I underwent new classes along with a host of standard health screenings. I never thought about the notes associated with my vision or hearing screenings, or asked my mom about my vaccination records. I never questioned why I was handed a stack of paper at the beginning of each school year that I was supposed to give to my parents.

You understand the importance of those notes, records, and paper stacks. You know that each new school year doesn’t happen thanks to magic, unless you consider hard work magical.

In your journey toward a successful new school year, let’s take a virtual school bus trip for a few minutes. Along the way, we’ll look at a few factors that can contribute to that success.

A School Bus Trip to New School Year Success

Each stop along the way represents something you can do to make this school year a great one for everyone at your district.





Stop One: Student Enrollment

Anyone involved in student health will require visibility into the students they’re supporting.

Of course, student enrollment is tracked in your student information system, so if you have an EHR that integrates with your SIS, you can avoid some redundant work. It’s important that providers have access to student demographics, too, so that they can better prepare for their caseloads. Student information can also help ensure that providers have enough of the prescriptions they need, too.

Hand-picked Content for you:

What to Look for in an EHR
Read Now

When you have a good view of your student enrollment, it’s easier to be aware of any students transitioning between buildings, ensure that health providers are assigned to the correct campus, and inform providers of their assigned campus. And of course, student immunizations are another critical piece, especially for school nurses.

If you have a system like Frontline School Health Management, all of this information is easily accessible to any users whose roles require it. And important details like students’ immunization records are easily imported to the system at the time of enrollment, too. Students are the foundation of every school, so getting student enrollment right is the first stop on our way to a successful year — it’s almost like a GPS for our bus.

That GPS is taking us to scheduling next.

Stop Two: Scheduling

When you’re starting your day, you probably begin by looking at your schedule to make sure you’re prepared for any meetings. The new school year is similar, just on a larger scale. It’s ideal if you can add any non-attending days for students and/or faculty ahead of time.

Then there’s the scheduling for group events like vision and lice screenings. If your school engages parent or guardian volunteers for such events, you’ll need to communicate with them.

Depending on how many nurses, counselors, and other providers you have in your district, you may also need to think about travel time for these professionals. And if you have students who require services outside of the classroom based on their IEPs, you’ll need to coordinate with Student Services.

Stop Three: Security

Student data is more vulnerable than adult data, and it’s the district’s responsibility to keep that information safe. K12 Information Exchange releases annual reports on cybersecurity, and their reports have shown that since 2016, 1,331 incidents have been reported, with 2020 being a record-high year for security incidents.

Hand-picked Content for you:

3 Ways Districts Can Better Handle Student Health Records
Read Now

If your system has security roles, you’ll likely need to update them to reflect any staff changes. Even if you haven’t experienced any turnover, you might have staff who didn’t require system access over the summer. Those individuals might need their access reinstated with any required edits.

Remember those stacks of papers I went home with on my first day of school? That probably wasn’t the most secure method of communicating with parents, but fortunately, there are much better ways today. Frontline’s EHR gives you and students’ guardians a user-friendly way to communicate in a secure portal.

Of course, security is relevant year-round, so part of your back-to-school prep might include reviewing and informing all staff of your district’s security procedures and information privacy policies.

We’ve got one more stop on our journey. Let’s go!

Stop Four: Tracking Services

Anyone working in Student Services might be keenly aware of the need to track services even on the first day of school, especially if you’re trying to maximize your Medicaid reimbursements. If you choose a single vendor for both your school nursing program and service tracking program, you’ll have one point of entry for submitting claims, giving you a fuller picture of how health services impact your Medicaid reimbursements, and ensuring that no eligible claims are missed.

A tip: if your state has embraced Free Care, this could be especially helpful in tracking mental health services.

Hand-picked Content for you:

Want to learn more about Free Care?
Check This Out

The Destination: A Fabulous New School Year!

You made it! Your providers will be ready to support students, and will feel supported themselves, making everyone’s first day of school smoother. If you have an EHR, don’t forget to check in with your vendor and review any release notes from product updates completed over the summer.

As a kid who wasn’t used to taking the bus to school, I remember the nurse’s office fondly. Our nurse helped alleviate my headaches and nausea thanks to the motion sickness brought on by the bus. Without their care, I wouldn’t have had the chance to be as focused in the classroom. Even simple student encounters can make a big difference in a student’s life and academic trajectory.

This trip flew by, much like this school year likely will, too. You’re ready!