Overview
A new director and team looking to make changes to program operations
Time savings for community members and staff allow for higher enrollment potential
Parent communication through SMS and program promotion through links and QRs are favorite features of the district
Program introduction
Litchfield Public Schools (LPS) serves the community of Litchfield, MN — a town of just over 6,500 located over an hour west of Minneapolis. LPS facilitates a variety of before and after school programs, including:
Dragon Kids Club before and after school care and full-day summer programs
Youth and adult enrichment activities
Youth and adult trips, including youth trips on nonschool days
Preschool
Early Childhood Family Education (ECFE) programming
The three-person team of Grant Solem, Ashlyn Rodriguez, and Kelsi Hogg oversees all this programming under the community education umbrella. A team that underwent a recent overhaul, Solem, Rodriguez, and Hogg are all relatively new to their positions, less than two years.
Setting
Transitioning into their roles within a few months of each other, the community education team quickly became aligned and open to making changes. The department had been run the same for a long time, including the software used to manage all programming. After over seven years of a platform lacking certain functionalities and usability features, it was time to explore a change. As they looked at their desired program growth, they realized a new program management software would be an important catalyst.
“It was disheartening to receive phone calls from community members who were having such a hard time logging into the website or trying to do things on their own, so they had to call into our office rather than use our technology.”
Solution
Seamless registration and community experience
This fall, Solem, Rodriguez, and Hogg made the discovery they hoped for when they were introduced to Arux. Fast forward to all of their programming now live on Arux, the team is experiencing seamless registration seasons, invoicing, and a user-friendly experience for the community.
“Our preschool registration was so smooth. Previously, it was all on paper, so this was our first time going online with Arux, and we only had one phone call, which was actually a user error. It was so nice.”
Rather than calling the district or visiting in person, community members have quickly gravitated towards the online experience.
“We communicated that we have a new system, sent families the link to log in, and it’s all swift and easy for them. That’s exactly what we needed and looked forward to with a software switch.”
With a quick and easy online registration process, Litchfield families now save valuable time at the start of each preschool season.
“Parents no longer need to come into our office for preschool registration. Instead of sitting here for a half hour and filling out all the paperwork, it’s all online. I swear it took some parents only 2 ½ minutes to register. It was so fast.”
Customer service
Along with LPS’s software needing to be more intuitive, they were also looking for more out of their customer support experience — with long response times, confusion about what was being communicated, and many “No, that can’t be changed.” responses.
Well, their customer experience has turned into customer success. Now, when anyone on the LPS team reaches out, they quickly receive a response from someone they know on the Arux team.
“Every time we’ve ever had to reach out, whether through a direct email, call, or a support ticket, we have always been so impressed. And it’s always someone we know. It’s cool to know the people you’re working with are helping you troubleshoot through anything.”
Additional time savings
With their programming on Arux, LPS is experiencing significant time savings in many operations, most notably during invoicing and billing periods, which Rodriguez heads up.
“In the summer, one of our busiest times for Dragon Kids Club, we had just shy of 60 kids in our program - to go in and pull up a kid’s schedule, pull up the invoice, send the invoice - it’s a process. To do all of that invoicing would take almost an entire workday once a week.”
Arux’s integrated payment processing creates flexibility for LPS, empowering district finance teams to run fast, thorough, and accurate financial reports.
“It allows us to enroll more kids. We don’t need to spend so much time on billing. We can expand our program without affecting how long it takes us to manage the billing.”
Favorite Features
Family communication through SMS
In their short time using Arux, the LPS team has quickly enjoyed the ability to view communications within parent accounts. For example, seeing when families view invoices and engage with district communications has proven very valuable.
The LPS team also appreciates being able to deliver text messages to community members when needed. Whether program announcements, emergency communication, etc., it’s a game-changer for how the district can communicate with families.
Sharing program information via links and QR codes
On the programming side, LPS ensures that information is accessible for parents to sign up. Doing so helps the community education team achieve its larger goal of making its program more digital and accessible online.
“We’re trying to make everything accessible to the parent(s) so they can just click on it and sign up immediately. We want it all right there in front of them. Before, I would go to the school website, copy the link there, and now it’s all right there on Arux. It saves us time, and it helps us with this transition.”
Going Forward
Summer represents one of the busiest times for the community education team. Many families will begin logging in and creating accounts in the next few months in preparation for signing up for Dragon Kids Club and summer programs. The team looks forward to an easier transition between summer and school-year programming.
“Being able to accommodate more children for Dragon Kids Club is more of an undertaking. We’ll see a big change there, and it will be a much more seamless transition between school year and summer.”
In preparation for summer activities, the team looks forward to working with coaches, communicating with them to create accounts and logging in to view their rosters.
Many coaches email daily requesting an updated roster. We’re excited about the new process with the coaches so they have more access to their rosters and the information they need for their summer activities.
For Dragon Kids Club, the consistency of checking kids out on an iPad via the Arux Connect: Child Care app will be huge for LPS moving forward.
“Our staff walks kids to different activities throughout the day. We constantly have staff and kids flowing through. It will be nice to have the consistency. For something like a staff switch, they can look at the app, know the location of kids, and be able to communicate that to parents.
Across the board, Litchfield Public Schools and Arux have increased the convenience and accessibility of the district's programming for users and community members.