States nationwide are slowly starting to reopen their doors, but the time for school in most areas has already passed. Most schools closed mid-March and never reopened for the 2019-2020 school year. School boards nationwide are already working to make plans for what the Fall might look like for school districts. The disruptions we have seen as a nation from the COVID-19 pandemic will undoubtedly reverberate into the next school year and perhaps beyond.

 

Schools are struggling with online schooling. In a survey completed by USA Today, the overall consensus was remote learning is not working. A staggering 76% of teachers polled said students are falling behind and 65% agreed that their area schools would reopen in the Fall.

But what does a reopen in the Fall look like for schools? School districts nationwide are working on multiple plans with continued remote learning or flexible scheduling with students rotating what days they attend the classroom and when they will take online classes. Some districts are even working on alternating morning and afternoon attendance for students, with most districts referencing the recently released guidelines from the CDC.  Some of the big items for schools will be continuous disinfecting procedures, how to properly plan student occupation on buses, and plan out scheduling for transportation to and from school.

The question to ask is whether your current process (possibly a manual paper process or automation using an older software) can provide the flexibility needed considering the extent of changes and requirements coming this Fall.  You may want to move to an automated process or to update to a newer software to handle all of the uncertainty, but with so many software options how do you find the right fit for your district?

The App-Garden’s Facility Tracker and Routing software are modern, easy to use platforms built with the type of flexibility and visibility you will need for the new normal this Fall.  Below are some of the features and benefits that the App-Garden software can provide to help your school  adapt to the  upcoming uncertainty and new ways of doing business:

 

Travel Tracker Routing Features

 

Calendar Based Scheduling	Save time – easily accommodate complex schedules such as a student who gets dropped or picked up at various stops on different days of the week.   Flexibility in Scheduling: Plan scenarios such as social distancing on the bus or students who may alternate days of the week.
Route Consolidation	Deal with driver shortages.  We are hearing that there is the possibility of even greater driver shortages this fall.  Travel Tracker for Routing allows you to instantly combine multiple routes and spread the stops over other routes.
Parent Notifications	Save time and keep everyone in the loop by easily notifying parents of schedule and route changes.  Provides notification to parents & drivers individually and/or in groups via text and/or email anytime.  For example – new bus assignments, regular agendas, delays and more.  This will be even more important with the constant changes coming this Fall.
Unlimited User License	Open visibility without the extra cost – Provide access to those that need it within the district at no additional cost.  As changes may be constant, you can provide your school administrators access to view bus schedules, bus rosters for any given day.  This will be especially important if your district does a modified schedule.
Cloud-Based	Easy Access from anywhere, anytime.  No servers to maintain, no in-house IT support required, updates to software are done by the App-Garden.  Access from your phone from anywhere you are working.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facility Tracker – Work Order Management Features

 

Communication	Better Communication!  Communicating and coordinating among your team is going to be key this Fall to handle the volume of extra cleaning and sanitizing.  The Facility Tracker provides that communication from within the application, ensuring that everyone is in the loop and works efficiently.
Preventive Maintenance	Schedule ahead! Schedule preventive maintenance tasks quickly and easily.  You may find that you are managing a much larger volume of repetitive cleaning tasks this fall and this will make it much easier to manage.
Calendar	Open visibility! Have open visibility over work orders through a calendar view. “Hover” feature allows you to hover over a work order or date and view all necessary details. Admin users can open the work orders and adjust the date, priority level and more based on district needs.
Reporting	The information you need! Create, save and run reports to best suit your department and district needs. Reports be set up to auto generate and sent directly to your email inbox daily, weekly, monthly or whenever they are needed.
Online Work Order Form	Paperless! Remove the need for paper work order requests, emails and phone calls. Work orders can be submitted online and routed to the administrator in charge of approval and assignment.
Cloud Based	Access anywhere, anytime! No servers to maintain, no in-house IT support required, updates to software are done by the App-Garden. Backups provided by the App-Garden

These are just some features and benefits! Join us today for a brief demo to see how the App-Garden can help you get ahead of the changes coming!

 

 

References

Page, S. (2020) Back to school? 1 in 5 teachers are unlikely to return to reopened classrooms this fall, poll says. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/05/26/coronavirus-schools-teachers-poll-ipsos-parents-fall-online/5254729002/