How West Valley School District (WA) took a gradual and systemic approach to creating a modern HR solution that improves efficiency, transparency, and collaboration.
Challenges
- Paper-heavy HR workflows and processes
- Siloed HR, finance, and technology departments negatively impacted employees’ onboarding experience
- Delayed communications impacted payroll and staffing
- Inconsistent standards and cadences for teacher evaluations
Solution
- PowerSchool Applicant Tracking
- PowerSchool Employee Records
- PowerSchool Perform
- PowerSchool Professional Learning
Results
- Streamlined digital workflows
- Smoother and more efficient onboarding experience for new hires
- Improved inter-departmental communication
- Greater access and visibility into hiring and funding for all stakeholders
- Refined consistency and equity for teacher evaluations
West Valley School District relied on slow, paper-based processes to manage 535 educators and staff. Inheriting low-tech, underutilized, and inefficient solutions, a new executive leadership team wanted technology to invigorate its systems and boost productivity.
Sabre Dahl, Executive Director of Human Resources, might easily have become overwhelmed at the amount of work it would take to overhaul outdated solutions and implement an entirely new infrastructure. Instead, knowing that a journey begins with a single step, Dahl embraced the idea of doing a “slow and continuous build-out” to ensure all newly adopted software met the district’s specific needs. This incremental approach helped WVSD build a robust system that meets stakeholder needs, is technologically advanced, and synthesizes applicant tracking, employee records, and professional development.
Technology Implementation with Purpose
An essential first step for Dahl was identifying HR’s most immediate needs. She knew that improving the new hire onboarding experience was critical, particularly because onboarding experiences influence teacher retention. Dahl also prioritized eliminating paper processes, breaking down data silos to inform relevant stakeholders of necessary information in a timely and consistent way, and implementing consistent processes across departments.
Dahl says, “Historically our district’s Achilles’ heel was working in isolation rather than cross-departmental collaboration to optimize utilization and expansion of technology.” Knowing the technology she chose needed to be both functional and intuitive, as well as capable of integrating with other tech products the district already used, Dahl began building a platform of PowerSchool solutions that met WVSD’s most pressing needs. Beginning with Applicant
Tracking and Employee Records, both part of PowerSchool’s HR & ERP Cloud, WVSD then adopted Perform and, most recently, Professional Learning, two solutions in the Educator Effectiveness Cloud.
Improving Hiring and New Employee Onboarding
With Applicant Tracking, principals can now screen applicants themselves rather than waiting to receive materials from HR, Dahl explains. Before using solutions from PowerSchool’s HR & ERP Cloud, there was a disconnect between the many offices that needed to be notified of a new hire, delaying the onboarding process and creating a frustrating, fragmented experience for all parties.
Now when a candidate is selected for hire, “We click that begin hire button and it creates a record in Employee Records. They [also] immediately get an evaluation profile [in Perform],” explains Dahl. New hire paperwork is immediately deployed electronically through Applicant Tracking. The necessary departments—including finance and technology—are directly notified about new hires so they can begin managing payroll logistics and system access for new users.
Dahl explains, “When I started, [new hire onboarding] was very paper heavy, [and] disconnected. Departments across the district weren’t always getting the information they needed. Like tech didn’t know about a new hire to be able to set them up and configure.” Now, she says, “As a new hire, I feel immediately welcomed. I have things to begin working on. I have information about new hire orientations that are up and coming. It’s that new hire experience of feeling quite welcomed that has been beneficial.”
Establishing Regular, Equitable Teacher Evaluations
When Dahl began at WVSD, the teacher evaluation process was inconsistent in its procedures. There was no way of ensuring fairness, accuracy, and equity. Says Dahl, “Nobody was following the same practice. Everybody was using different forms and [there was] just a lack of consistency. I saw that frankly as a bit of a liability.”
Implementing Perform changed that. Dahl jokes that she helped administrators buy in to the new software by saying to them, “Gosh, if we could all agree to a form, then we could actually feed some of this [evaluation] data through the platform and you wouldn’t have to complete the final evaluation all over.”
Dahl says that Perform is a “progressive product just by the nature of getting everybody on the same page and in agreement without totally disrupting a system.” Now her department feels more confident that evaluations are executed consistently, fairly, and comprehensively.
Driving Innovation and Collaboration
Now that WVSD uses four PowerSchool products, Dahl envisions a single sign-on (SSO) system that gives all users centralized access to what they need. She explains, “I’m slowly over [the past] two years . . . doing massive system cleanup [so] we’re developing more collaboration with our technology team to begin utilizing data in concert with one another. . . We need to be intentional about how we’re doing that.”
Of the system she’s built, Dahl is proud of what it helps her district do. “There’s just a complete connection between HR and finance related to the staffing components that wasn’t there. Now there is a collaborative approach and connection between them.”
In thinking about how she will continue to develop and innovate HR solutions, Dahl says, “It’s an ongoing process of improvement.” She and her staff will continue to learn what the solutions are capable of, how to maximize their utility, and what needs adjusting. WVSD learned that modern HR workflows are easiest when districts identify their needs, know what needs fixing, and take small steps to get there. Dahl ultimately aims for transparency and accessibility for staff.
Embracing Opportunity
Rather than be intimidated by the need to modernize an entire HR system, WVSD prioritized its needs and made thoughtful, intentional choices about technology and processes. Dahl plans to continue learning what the software can do to leverage it most effectively. “We’re definitely not done,” she says. “We are in this mode of fine-tuning all the components to really work effectively together.”
Dahl also has advice for other districts that may find themselves in the same position: “We’re implementing all these changes in phases,” she says. Indeed, as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.