0 Fundraiser Ideas for Organizations: Raise Money Without Selling Door-to-Door (Part 1)

Part 1 of 5

How far would you go for a fundraiser? Would you kiss a pig? Organize a game of cow chip bingo? Paint Pepsi on your school roof? As school budgets seem to buy less and less of what educators and parents believe students need, money from fundraising is becoming more and more important. Some school districts are discovering – or creating – new ways to raise money.

Whether it is selling candy and wrapping paper or such items as T-shirts, candles, pizza kits, posters, cookies, collectibles, or magazines, fundraising is not new. Each year, schools and nonprofit groups make about $2 billion through fundraising activities!

Until recently, many schools asked students to sell door-to-door to finance everything from band uniforms to trips abroad: things not ordinarily covered by school budgets. But after the murder of a sixth grader selling wrapping paper and candy and the rape of another student selling newspaper subscriptions, many school districts discourage door-to-door fund-raising. If children do go door-to-door, adults or older siblings are urged to accompany them when they sell or deliver the products. And schools are now suggesting that children sell only during the day and request that children’s parents pick up the items being sold and turn in the money so youngsters are not walking the streets with merchandise or cash. School districts would also like to see students sell primarily to relatives, friends, close neighbors, and their parents’ co-workers.

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0 K-12 Online Partners to Bring Affordable Solutions to Charter Schools

CSMC and K-12 Online join forces to bring affordable online registration, lottery management and e-commerce solutions to charter schools

IRVINE, CALIF. – June 15, 2015 – Charter School Management Corporation (CSMC) and K-12 Online by Jireh Infosystems aligned as strategic partners to offer affordable software solutions that streamline processes and simplify integrated data exchanges through PowerSchool.

CSMC (www.csmci.com), the largest provider of back-office services to charter schools, offers cost-effective PowerSchool solutions and support designed to meet the specific needs of charter schools. Their customized support program allows schools to get the most out of PowerSchool without the steep learning curve. CSMC also provides full-service CALPADS state reporting to all of their clients, lifting the heavy burden off of schools, ensuring accurate and timely submissions, and helping schools maximize their LCFF funding.

As one of the first PowerSchool ISV partners, K-12 Online offers flexible and ad-hoc custom field integration for improved record keeping and stress-free state reporting of student data. Embedded with PowerSchool, the use of API and single-sign-on (SSO) provides seamless integration to ensure clean, up-to-date data is readily available. For more information on Pearson’s ISV program, visit www.pearsonschoolsystems.com.

“Every charter school has certain local, state, and federal reporting requirements that must be completed in order to assure accurate funding for the school and to properly report student data.   Often times these systems are not designed to play nice with each other and can take hours and hours of staff time just to submit a single report,” stated Sarkis Gharibian, director of compliance and student data, CSMC. “Our partnership with K-12 Online supports communication of these systems for seamless data integration into PowerSchool. Charter schools can speed up this process and help keep their operations in compliance with all required reporting.”

“We are excited to partner with CSMC. Together we understand the need for charter schools to attract the right type of students, from first interactions during the application and lottery process to communicating with existing parents throughout the school year,” expressed Michelle Sam, owner, K-12 Online. “This partnership offers charter schools the security, flexibility and efficiency they need to streamline processes and help them carry out their mission. Working together, we are able to achieve the end goal of making schools’ and districts’ jobs easier.”

Both companies expressed their belief that offering schools a choice of flexible and customizable technology solutions is critical to optimizing performance across all stakeholders; schools, administrators, teachers, parents and students.

About CSMC

CSMC is the largest provider of back-office financial services to charter schools, serving over 150 schools throughout the country. Our staff has expertise in charter school development, budgeting, data systems, fiscal operations, and financial management. For more information about CSMC visit www.csmci.com

About K-12 Online

K-12 Online by Jireh Infosystems provides an affordable, intuitive, turnkey solution that automates and streamlines new-student application, returning-student registration, school choice/lottery management, fundraising, parent purchases and school accounting; making registration smooth and easy for parents and admin. Our range of products can be used year-round to provide schools with a truly automated and streamlined workflow process. For more information about K-12 Online visit www.k12online.us

0 How to Choose an Online Registration System That Fits Your Needs

Are you looking for ways to cut or reallocate your budget? Do you need to streamline processes? Have you considered implementing an online registration system?

If you currently process student enrollment and registration forms manually or with outdated software, your staff works overtime during peak enrollment weeks, or updating your SIS requires manual labor, then an online registration system may be right for you.

More and more schools and districts are turning to online technology solutions to help manage everyday tasks. The trend of working with partners has proven to be valuable however; the daunting task of comparing products, attending demos, etc. can be exhausting.

We’ve compiled a list of questions to consider as you review systems to ensure the service provider you select will perform how and when you need it.

1. Does the system help reduce parents’ time spent filling out forms as well as waiting in line, creating a better experience for parents?
2. Can online forms be created and used year-round (i.e. field trip forms, special event sign-up, etc.), making the system more versatile rather than just for the beginning of the school year?
3. How easily can forms be created and edited, allowing schools to make necessary changes when necessary?
4. Does the system provide residency verification alerts, increasing your registrar’s operational efficiency?
5. Can forms be created and viewed in multiple languages, making it user-friendly for ALL parents?
6. Does the system have built-in ways to solicit donations, increasing your return on investment?
7. Will the system assist in recouping fees for lost textbooks, further saving your school money?
8. Are eCommerce and credit card processing capabilities offered, allowing parents to take care of all purchases online?
9. Does the software allow privileged-level access; allowing PTAs, Boosters, etc. to access certain information while still maintaining security of data?
10. Is the software all-inclusive, allowing you to utilize all applications at no extra charge?
11. How is customer and technical support provided for administrators and parents (online support, live customer assistance,etc.)?
12. What other suite of products are offered (lottery management, merchant processing, web store, etc.) that integrates to allow for a one-stop shop?
13. And lastly, one of the most critical questions is how easily does the system integrate with your school information system?

Choosing an online school registration system that is inclusive and considers the needs of parents, students, teachers and administration is important. Make sure discussions include representatives of the student body, staff and parents. Parents want registration to be quick and easy, while administrators want a lot of information.

Any company can create an online registration system, but companies like K-12 Online that specialize in school management software know and understand the basic registration needs of K-12 schools and will help you identify the most useful features that work for your school and with your system.

0 5 benefits of using an online registration system

Public schools, private schools, independent schools, charters schools or even entire school districts – large or small, everyone can benefit from taking an online approach to managing school operations. This is especially true when it comes to the registration process. While traditional registration is a paper-based, labor-intensive process that wastes both time and money, online registration for schools is highly efficient and promises to revolutionize how administrators manage school operations.

Below are five key benefits of using an online school registration system:

1. Save Time. Clerks and classified workers spend countless hours manually sorting, retrieving, entering and alphabetizing data with traditional registration processes. In addition, when students fail to bring in all of the individual forms that are required for registration, further time is wasted tracking down these forms.
2. Save Money. Switching to online registration is a proven strategy for saving schools money. With traditional, paper-based registration processes, schools spend thousands of dollars in mailing, paper and printing costs.
3. Build Community. Apart from freeing up time for clerks and classified workers, online registration for schools allows school principals to spend more time interacting with students and parents. This is because with online registration, principals no longer have to waste time troubleshooting the many problems that arise with traditional registration processes.
4. Happy Parents. A key aspect in managing school operations is ensuring that parents are happy. After all, parents offer invaluable contributions (both monetary and through volunteer work). Online registration for schools is a proven parent-pleaser.
5. Save the Planet. “It takes one 15-year old tree to produce half a box of paper.??? One of the foremost concerns of this era is conservation. With issues such as deforestation, overpopulation, Greenhouse Gas effect, Global warming, etc., schools have been increasingly trying to educate the next generation about environmental conservation. Most schools have already integrated recycling systems: separating bins for plastic, metal, electronic, and paper. By using a web-based technology system, like K-12 Online, schools can become more eco-friendly and teach by example.

Begin your school year saving valuable resources. Set an example to your students and make an eco-friendly choice by choosing an online registration system that saves money, time and resources. Take the Free School Savings Assessment to see how much you can save!

0 K-12 Online Celebrates National Charter Schools Week

As the first registration, enrollment, and lottery management provider to cater to small schools, K-12 Online celebrates the success of charter schools during National Charter Schools Week.

Savvy schools know their future requires them to become more integrated with parents, teachers and students. The world we live in is becoming increasingly interconnected and small schools can’t afford to be left behind nor can they afford to pay large amounts of money to implement necessary improvements.

Research shows that a school spends an average of $50 per student on the registration process and in many cases, is left with inconsistent data and no system in place to check whether a student is missing important registration forms.

Although the web-based application is designed for any school or district, K-12 Online is the leader in providing affordable solutions tailored to charter schools’ needs. By automating the entire process from application to classroom selection, schools can save both parents and admin undue headache (and heartache).

K-12 Online salutes Charter schools who are combating the problem of school wastefulness and streamlining their processes to be more cost effective and eco-friendly.

Happy National Charter Schools Week!

0 Residency Verification Made Easy with K-12 Online

Residency verification is a huge concern for school districts. The numbers vary by state but estimates by School Board Associations reveal that approximately 6,000 – 10,000 students in the state, respectively, are attending a school that is not within the district of their actual residency. Ironically, budget cuts at the state and local levels are forcing districts to ensure that all enrolled students meet residency requirements.

Schools spend countless hours and resources babysitting this process to ensure they are only enrolling students whose parent(s) or guardian(s) reside within district boundaries. However, the manual process of filling out proof of identity and residency forms, not to mention faxing or returning the forms back to the school is tiring.  K-12 Online to the rescue!

Besides some built-in features that alert school staff of a change of physical residency when parents update their students’ information, K-12 Online has also incorporated new technologies that may assist schools in identifying “out of district??? students even before they enroll. Contact us to find out how we can help your school or district verify residency with ease.

0 School Districts Revamp Spending Habits

In a recent article released by Education Week, there is a new push for districts to drop the year-to-year budget cycles and follow a budgeting process that requires long-term planning guided by efforts to improve student achievement. What started out as a six district pilot program has now expanded to over twenty districts implementing the principles instituted by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA).

“Probably the vast majority of districts don’t have that kind of regular dialogue that’s really needed in order to budget properly, [and] also budget effectively, especially given that most districts across the country are operating under continued pressures in terms of their finances,” said Matt Bubness, a manager at GFOA and a former operations director for the Chicago Public Schools.

GFOA’s best practices for budgeting emphasize planning and preparation as well as encourage community engagement. The creation of multi-year financial plans forces districts to rethink and realign.

Of course, the annual budgeting method is less controversial when year after year, districts do the same thing (along with a few tweaks) and their budget is accepted and approved because it worked before.

The multi-year budgeting approach requires districts to define their priorities and allocate funds accordingly. It allows districts to redirect funds from one area to another based on long-term goals and to allocate funds for successive budget years to support initiatives.

Susan Moxley, Lake County’s superintendent, called this way of doing business a “real paradigm shift.” The long-term planning has made it easier to deal with annual budget adjustments, she said. “It brought to light the importance of our resources and how precious they are and that they all need to be very strategically and deliberately focused on those outcomes,” Ms. Moxley said.

Every expense should be evaluated for its return on investment, considering not only initial cost and expenses during the life of the purchase, but also the savings that may have been realized from implementation. The benefit, is increased transparency and a consciousness about how money is spent and where dollars are allocated.

Can your district benefit from long-term budget planning? For more information visit the Smarter School Spending for Student Success website.

0 Smaller schools no longer burdened with the help of affordable online registration

One of the toughest challenges in education is managing a small school. Budget cuts instituted on a statewide level affect both large and small districts, however, smaller schools tend to feel the crunch more when operating on an already meager budget. But the burden of affordable online registration can be lifted!

Savvy schools know their future requires them to become more integrated with parents, teachers and students. The world we live in is becoming increasingly interconnected and small schools can’t afford to be left behind for the sake of our children, nor can they afford to pay large amounts of money to implement necessary improvements.

K-12 Online was developed to combat the problems of school wastefulness and the excessive time and energy required to register K-12 students year after year. K-12 Online’s solution helps schools overcome application, registration, enrollment, and lottery management hassles and streamlines the process to be more cost effective and eco-friendly.

Although our products work seamlessly for any size school or district, small schools choose K-12 Online over and over again for it’s ability to offer budget-friendly solutions while still providing high quality products and maintaining it’s high level of customer service.

0 Why is School Choice Gaining Popularity?

As parents look into more options for educating their children, one that continues to gain popularity is school choice – the freedom to choose where your child goes to school.

Most residence of a community pay tax dollars to help subsidize the cost of education in their district. School choice allows parents the ability to decide how their tax dollars are being applied and more importantly, how their child is being educated.

There are many school choice options: Private schools, charter schools, homeschooling, and online learning. Having the ability to choose a school levels the playing field for families, while encouraging healthy competition among schools to better service their needs.

Over the last few years, parents have been taking their child’s education into their own hands. Empowering parents with the ability to handpick a school of choice makes them feel as if their child is receiving the best possible education and one that is appropriate to their level of learning. Some public schools are highly accomplished and parents may feel it’s too competitive and will create a stressful environment for their child. While other parents place high academic standards on their children and feel that their home school is not stringent enough. Yet, for others the choice stems from how their child will assimilate or behave within a certain environment.

Whatever the reason a parent decides to follow the path of school choice, there is no denying that there is a growing threat to public schools. Many have experienced a decline in enrollment over the years and a few have even been forced to close their doors.

As doors close, opportunities are being opened for choice schools. We’ve seen charter schools gaining popularity and registration and wait list numbers increasing. There are pros and cons to any decision, however the more we can provide equality in education and give children the same opportunity to learn, the better off we are as a society in producing successful adults.

There are many types of school choice programs. Each state has its own set of regulations regarding school choice. Some states, such as California do not offer private school choice programs, but do allow online and charter school options, as well as intradistrict and interdistrict public school choice. Visit Freedman Foundation for Education Choice and find out more information about school choice options in your state.

0 Private Schools: Incorporating Online Application Systems

Does your private school have an online application system? The ease of enrollment affects whether a parent will even bother to apply to a school. If the enrollment experience is pleasant, it creates a good first impression of the school. It shows that the school cares and has made the effort to create a pleasant experience. It also demonstrates that the school is at the cutting edge of technology and implies that this would also be evident in the classroom.

The K-12 Online student application, enrollment, and registration system allows students to submit their entire application, including essays and personal statements, online. This process saves paper and resources. Parents can even scan and upload pictures and documents that are part of their application. When they hit the submit button, their application is sent. No papers, no postage! Continue reading