Opening a new school is an endeavor even under the best of circumstances. And one challenge that surfaces right from the start is the enrollment process — a challenge felt particularly acutely by new charter schools who lack a formal enrollment system.
Paper-based enrollment forms and processes required for charter school enrollment have long been a source of stress and aggravation for families:
- Knowing that completing these forms can be time-consuming and frustrating, some families put off the task.
- Others submit incomplete or hard-to-read information.
- Some avoid enrolling altogether, seeking out another school that uses an online enrollment system.
But it’s not just families struggling to keep up with multiple applications, deadlines, and rules. Office staff must work overtime, chasing down parents and guardians for missing information and transferring data from paper to a digital container, like Google Drive or Excel.
Fortunately, there’s a solution to this problem: switching over to an online charter school enrollment system like SchoolMint Enroll.
Going digital with your charter school enrollment software allows you to gather error-free data, saving time and money while greatly improving the experience for families.
Avoid Errors and Omissions
Transcribing handwritten papers into a database is a cumbersome, error-prone process. The opportunities for errors to creep in abound:
- Data or form omissions
- Misreading a parent’s handwriting
- Introducing errors due to lack of familiarity with a student
- Introducing errors due to typos/oversights in the transcription process
But with a digital enrollment system for new charter schools, parents are the ones entering the information directly (completely and legibly), and those mistakes are completely avoided.
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Collect All the Data You Need
Smart forms in SchoolMint Enroll require a parent to answer certain questions before submitting an online packet.
Using conditional logical (which is fully configurable by you), these smart forms ensure all information is completed before a parent can move onto the next step of enrollment.
This means no more incomplete student enrollment data!
Use Tech-Enabled Shortcuts
Tech-enabled shortcuts reduce the amount of data entry required from parents. In doing so, you further reduce the potential for error.
For example, with Autofill, basic information (such as a student’s address) automatically shows up wherever required after being entered just once.
As another example, with Autocomplete, common answers — such as the name of a previous school attended — can be filled out after only the first couple of keystrokes.
Parents don’t waste time by having to enter the same details over and over again, and the accuracy of the information provided improves.
Know Your Student Body
As families progress through the enrollment process, schools can keep track of the number of students at each stage.
With a clear snapshot of enrollment early on, schools can better plan for the school year ahead, hiring the right number of teachers and allocating funding right where it’s needed.
Keep Families on Track
Enrollment dashboards in SchoolMint Enroll reveal when a parent falls off or stalls during the enrollment process. Schools can send a reminder and/or instructions to nudge families along and keep them current with any requirements or deadlines.
Knowing this information via dashboard also allows you to proactively reach out to families who may require additional assistance to complete their enrollment.
Free Up Staff for Student-Centered Tasks
With a digital enrollment system in place, there’s no need for manual data entry. Staff can instead focus their attention on other tasks — and let’s be honest, when you’re a new charter school, that task list is neverending.
When Union Hill, a small school district in northern California, switched from paper to online enrollment with SchoolMint Enroll, they saved more than 300 staff hours per year. Staff members can now devote that extra time to assisting students and their families. You can read the full story here.
Use Funds for Other Priorities
Switching from paper enrollment saves schools money. There’s the money spent on paper itself as well as ink and postage. And then, of course, there’s the money spent on labor.
Union Hill’s enrollment lead, Kim Boundy, said eliminating manual data entry has translated to significant savings.
Give Parents and Guardians a Break
Online enrollment saves parents time, too. For example, in California’s San Leandro Unified School District, the enrollment process used to involve waiting in line outside a school for hours. Then the district partnered with SchoolMint.
Now parents enroll online, using just a phone number, and the system is 100% mobile friendly. “It’s making happier customers, a.k.a. happier parents,” says Superintendent Mike McLaughlin.
Improve your charter school enrollment process with the leading K-12 enrollment software.
SchoolMint Enroll is the best enrollment system for charter schools that are serious about creating efficient processes for themselves and easy experiences for families.
Our comprehensive enrollment management software provides functionality for managing any enrollment process in your charter school(s):
- Student Applications
- Lottery and Placement
- Student Registration and Re-Registration
- Special Enrollment Processes (e.g., Before/After Care)
Learn how SchoolMint Enroll can help you manage any enrollment need — applications, lottery, registration, and more.
