So, Who's Your Backup?

By Jim Shields, Enterprise Architect @enrollsmart

Recently, we've tested a new bit of our technology with some of our clients.  Well, it's a mixture of technology and philosophy.  The teachers at one of the schools we support have begun bringing on their own backups when they are hired.  

As a result, the school now asks applicants "Do you have a person that can back you when you're absent?" Now, in traditional thinking, this may seem odd or even weird, but is it really?  In response to this school's need to enroll backup teachers along with their direct hires, we've developed a technology tool that supports this; giving the school a larger pool to draw from and, giving each teacher a way to connect their hand-picked backup person to the school.

Of course, the people backing up the teachers have to meet the same requirements and undergo the same screenings as the primary teacher. However, because this is the understanding that the primary teacher has with their hand-picked backup, it is working out very well.

For example, a teacher was hired for the infant room and designated her daughter as her backup person for scheduled absences and time off. the center's owner interviewed the daughter as well and approved her to serve as her mom's backup.  The daughter already had childcare experience and was in the background check system with fingerprints and everything else she needed because she worked in the Home Health industry.

We designed a technology interface that allows the school to track time off requests and assign substitutes for approved time off just as school districts do and, this is working very well for the center. By working just a little harder at building its staff while investing in technology, the school has made significant progress in reducing turnover and ratio compliance problems.


Jim Shields is Enterprise Architect at Enrollsmart.  Enrollsmart provides operational, financial and web technology to childcare centers. Enrollsmart was built based on more than 15 years of childcare center ownership.  

To learn more about Enrollsmart, visit our childcare center information page at https://www.enrollsmart.net

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sticky Notes and Old Dusty Totes: The Task Management Crisis in Childcare Centers By Jim Shields, Enterprise Architect @enrollsmart It's been quite a while since we've updated our blog. The fall was very busy with implementations, consultations, beta tests and more.  In the time since we last posted in this blog, here are some things we've learned about the inner workings of hundreds of childcare centers across America: 1. Task management methods in nearly all of the childcare centers we spoke with are still heavily dependent on paper and face-to-face communication. 2. For nearly all of the projects and tasked we were involved in at childcare centers, there was a significant lack of follow through in a timely manner simply because communication relied so heavily on paper and meetings. For example, we attended weekly staff meetings at a number of centers for which we are engaged in technology projects and, we tracked the progress of projects and duties ass
Read more
Why Cash Should Not Be"King" in Childcare Centers in 2019 Safety and Customer Expectations Top The List of Reasons for Preschools and Childcare Centers To Go Cashless in 2019  By Jim Shields, Enterprise Architect @enrollsmart In the United States, more than 90% of childcare centers are owned and operated by women. This is a proud fact because quality preschool/childcare has become increasingly important to the development of young children as well as the stability of the US economy. Now, given the fact that preschools and childcare centers do not have the budgets that school districts do and, their workforce is more than 90% female, it makes safety sense that preschools and childcare centers begin converting their payment options to "cashless" for safety reasons. I go to childcare centers all the time and I see receipt books lying around indicating when and how much parents have paid the center in cash. But wait, aren't checks, money orders or AC
Read more