Speaker: John Stoddard, Superintendent, Berkshire Local Schools
What were some of your biggest challenges before implementing PublicSchoolWORKS?
John Stoddard: Before implementing PublicSchoolWORKS, we had a lot of trouble tracking our compliance tasks. We also had trouble managing the different requirements we had for teacher training and along with keeping track of the different teacher training that everyone had and making sure that we could account for the training that they had. In addition, we've used the student behavior modules with PublicSchoolWORKS. And before we, before we implemented the student behavior modules, we really had issues with transparency, not that we weren't trying to be transparent, but we didn't always have the ability to give immediate feedback to teachers when an office referral was handled or didn't really have a way to track office referrals effectively. Also, we didn't have a way to get information as quickly and efficiently to parents before we started using that. So those are some of the things that we've found beneficial as we implemented PublicSchoolWORKS.
What is the biggest change or improvement you've seen since implementing PublicSchoolWORKS?
John Stoddard: I would say the biggest change since we've implemented PublicSchoolWORKS is really the transparency in terms of work orders or technology requests or student behavior referrals in terms of bus referrals and office referrals, we're able to track respond to and get information back to people who submit those referrals a lot faster. In addition to that we have right at our fingertips, compliance records for any time someone asks where we are in terms of a task, we don't have to guess we can just pull the report and we know exactly where we are.
What is your favorite feature of PublicSchoolWORKS' offerings?
John Stoddard: My favorite feature of the PublicSchoolWORKS offerings is the Student Behavior Management Suite and that also comes along with the, the anonymous reporting and, and the safety concerns because we're able to communicate these issues right away. It makes everything more transparent from the students to the parents, to the teachers. Everyone is aware of where we are in the process and no one feels like their needs are being ignored or behaviors are going uncorrected. So for me that that is the most beneficial aspect in terms of our daily use of PublicSchoolWORKS.
How is PublicSchoolWORKS different from other similar products or services?
John Stoddard: There are other products that do similar things to PublicSchoolWORKS but what we found is this is kind of a one stop shop for most of the things we need. So it's really easy for our staff to, to log in to go to their their mandatory training modules and then for us to track those training modules, but they go to the same place to enter work repair requests, technology requests, student behavior management or student positive behavior referrals. So having everything right there in one place and given us the ability to track, sort, and review that data in a lot of different ways is I think what sets PublicSchoolWORKS apart from a lot of the other places where you may have those components. But there are extra steps involved into making good use of those components.
