Administrative tasks for any organization can often slow down processes, create barriers and make a mess of data—especially if they are performed manually. For school districts with cumbersome administration tasks and processes, this can impact new student enrollment, decrease both parent and student engagement and make it more difficult for faculty and staff to do their jobs efficiently.
That's where a sign up tool like SignUpGenius Enterprise comes in. With easy sign up creation and built-in features like powerful group messaging and reporting tools, SignUpGenius Enterprise can help simplify any event or task that requires a sign up. Here are three specific ways school districts can benefit from using a powerful software like SignUpGenius Enterprise.
If students miss out on school registration, they miss out on critical parts of their education. If they don't have a chance to get onboarded before the school year begins, they may end up having to miss the first days or weeks of school and, in turn, experience academic delay.
At Riverside Unified School District (RUSD), which is made up of 50 school sites in Riverside, California, easy and equitable school registration across its entire student population is a priority. As a school district that serves a diverse student body (80% of its students are minorities), SignUpGenius Enterprise allows families to choose times that work for them, ensuring they can attend registration and all students start the year on equal footing. The fact that SignUpGenius Enterprise can help equalize the registration process was a major factor in the decision to start using the tool.
"We ensure equity by having kiosks and technology for people to use when they come into our family resource center," said Raúl Ayala, director of pupil services at RUSD. "Also, instead of assigning times for parents to meet with teachers like we did before, SignUpGenius Enterprise is giving them a way to schedule around their busy schedules."
Two other benefits? New registrations equate directly to additional revenue coming into the district. And continuing to reduce any barriers to intake and registration is likely to result in additional registrations over time.
Improving the sign up experience can increase the amount of engagement parents and students have with the school. "We used to send parents a time to meet with the teacher and gave them zero flexibility," Ayala said. "Now we let parents decide times that work for them. I assume we would see more parents coming to conferences as a result."
SignUpGenius Enterprise helps support RUSD's School +2 initiative, which encourages students to become involved in two or more activities outside of the classroom. These activities can include clubs, sports teams and music groups, among many others—all of which require some kind of sign up process. Removing any barriers to sign up plus the ability to track attendance make a tool like SignUpGenius Enterprise incredibly valuable. The easier it is for both parents and students to get involved with their school, the higher their overall engagement is likely to be.
RUSD also employs this use case during summer registration, a time when many faculty members are out of office. SignUpGenius Enterprise makes it simpler to ensure there are staff available to help with new student registrations, and schools can use the tool to set up a touch point to schedule appointments and face-to-face meetings with parents who need to work around other priorities.
"SignUpGenius Enterprise is a great tool to use for engaging students and families," Ayala said. "We are all trying to get more parents involved. We can't do this without parents. There is something really powerful about giving parents the power to schedule when things are convenient for them. The underlying value of this is parents get the sense that we are being sensitive to their needs."
Learn more about how SignUpGenius Enterprise can benefit your school district.
