Every school looks for smarter ways to spend their money, and ways to save money.
Please comment below if you have your own ideas on this topic.
A school is like running a business.
You have limited resources available to you in accomplishing your school’s goals. Money is a resource that is always flowing back and forth. If we can try to limit our expenses, or maximize our output, we can see significant changes on our finances.In this post we will list some of the most imprtant
1. Efficient Productive Staff
What if your staff was able to work faster? What if they accomplished tasks 4-5 times faster than before? Saving time doing your work opens up opportunities to accomplish all the things we always dream of doing.Your staff is no different.If you employ 2 workers, who save just 2 hours a day by using a more efficient way of managing their tasks, that would amount to almost 100 hours a month. If your employees earn an average of $15/hr. that would amount to a $1500 monthly saving.
2. Centralized and Efficient
Messaging Apps
It has been researched and determined that “90% of people (so that’s basically all of us) waste between 15%-40% of their workday as a result of technologies“.
The highest ranking technology time wasters were the obvious emails and texting.
Assuming all of your worker’s communication was purely for professional reasons, email and texting is not an efficient tool for managing school tasks.
Remember all that time spent looking thru old emails and whatsapps?
Digging up information you received previously, or trying to figure who was that email from that you wanted to follow up on, takes a toll on us and is very distracting.
Using the proper school management system can be crucial in being efficient, working smart, and enjoying your work.
Computer Files
Let’s not overlook wasted time looking for files.
In a Nintex survey of 1,000 diverse employees conducted in 2018, “49% said they had trouble locating documents on a regular basis“.
And according to IDC data, “the average knowledge worker spends about 2.5 hours per day searching for information“.
That’s close to 30% of the work day!
3. More accurate data
By making better and more accurate “educated” decisions, your school can prevent large potential losses and increase revenue.
For example, every school has class capacities. Accepting one student less than capacity, or too many students, can cause aggravation and monetary losses.
When a school’s data is accurate and reliable you can avoid headaches and prevent repeating the same tasks twice, and having to sort out thru redundant data, or obsolete information that doesn’t apply anymore.
4. New work environment
Our working environment has drastically changed in the past few years.
Your colleagues, staff, students and parents expect quick responses to emails. Virtual meetings are more commonplace.
You may even need to closely collaborate on projects or tasks with several groups of teams.
If you use meeting tools like Zoom or Google Meet wouldn’t it be great to have the links in an intuitive place within your school management system, and allow all participants to easily find where the meeting is?
5. Become more energy efficient
Now really, how is a school management system going to save you money?
According to Energy Star, from a study they did of more than 17,000 school districts in America K-12, “as much as 30 percent of a district’s total energy is used inefficiently or unnecessarily!“
How many times have we walked into a meeting looking for the lights switches or figuring out how to turn on the air conditioner.
Well, what if your maintenance crew, custodian or janitor could log into your school management system to access live updates of your school’s schedules, PTA meetings, sports events, trips, other events etc.
Having a good school management system could promote better management of lights, air conditioning and heating costs for your school.
6. Stay on top of old debt
Old debt constitutes to a lot of “expenses” when you lose that potential income.
But hope is not lost.
Following up with students and their families after they have graduated is a sure way to reduce bad debt.
But be careful to not be out of touch for too long, as eventually people move on, acquire more debt, and don’t want to think about old debt.
Keeping in touch with alumni will keep your school in the forefront to be paid when money becomes available to them.
Online school management systems should give you the ability to mass email your entire alumni, without having to use an external paid service like MadMimi or Mail Chimp.
7. Online classes
Education Week quoted Pedro Martinez, the superintendent of the 49,000 student, public school system in San Antonio, Texas, who said “There’s no going back now from remote and hybrid learning”.
A researcher at RAND Corporation, Heather Schwartz, led a recent study showing that 1 in 5 districts were planning or considering a fully remote learning option, and that this would create a whole new parallel track for schools.
If you use online tools like Zoom or Google Meet or Google Classroom and other teaching tools you can post the links in one centralized location, using your school management system, which will then integrate into attendance and other features.
8. Reduce paper usage
MacArthur High School of San Antonio, Texas, reported the following:
Every month their school uses over 520,000 sheets of paper.
By having class schedules and announcements sent out via your school management software, you can save valuable time and resources.
9. Eliminate emails and phone calls
If parents and students can log into your school management system, they will be able to access school information and schedules.
This reduces unnecessary communication that costs you and your staff valuable time.
10. Order the right amount of meals
According to Foodservice Director, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) “evaluated post-service food waste in 46 schools in eight states across the country over a six-month period and found that participating schools wasted an average of 39.2 pounds of food and 19.4 cartons of milk per student, per year“. (read the full WWF’s article here).
A school management is helpful for communicating and tracking student information.
With a meal plan manager module, your school management system can help you report on, and make better predictions on how many meals you need to serve.
This should be a closely monitored task, coordinated with the kitchen staff, to try and see where wasted food could be avoided.
In Summary
Having the proper school management system set up for your school, certainly will pay for itself, as you can see from the ten examples we listed above.
This is done by drastically increasing efficiency and accuracy of your staff’s time and work.
Work smart, not harder, and enjoy your work again.
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