6. Parent appeal. Are parents appreciative that registration every year is simple and stress-free? Provide a system that streamlines the registration, webstore and tuition payment within the system. During our parent survey, the biggest gripes were: the number of paper forms, the number of systems parents have to access for the various functions, easy to read tuition payment statements.
7. Prospective parents. Are prospective parents receiving a good first impression of your school? Are parents still filling out paper forms? With today’s technology, parents should not have to jump through hoops to apply to your school. Some schools fail to remember that those prospective parents are your future clients. I don’t think more needs to be said on that.
8. Save resources. Does your system reduce the workload for admins such as bookkeepers and registrars . How much time is your staff spending on reconciling checks, chasing incomplete paperwork. As an exercise, let me challenge you to ask your staff how much time is spent babysitting the student application process, recommendation process, returning student registration process, manual data entry of parent information, running to make bank deposits etc. and multiply that by the average hourly wage. Add this to the cost of your SIS.
9. Cost. Compare apples to apples. Systems claim an integrated system but each integration is an added cost. What was an $8 per student system ends up being a $40 per student system. I’ve mentioned several associated costs above that should be factored into the price which should also include such things as the annual registration fee paid by parents for use of third party applications such as tuition. See Cost Calculator
10. Most important, Try before you buy. Many systems promise you the world but none deliver! Would you purchase a vehicle which claims everything without a test drive? What if there was a system out there that allowed your teachers, parents and admins to try the system so they could see how intuitive and how easy it was to navigate. Would you be willing to give it a try? Most companies allow you to make your decision based on a free one hour demo. Perhaps that is good enough for your school. Otherwise, do your due diligence and find a solution that does offer an all-inclusive, try before you buy system.
