Choosing The Best Dismissal Management System For Your School

In this article, we demystify and share the benefits of Choosing the Best Mobile School Dismissal Management System for your school.

Schools have limited time and limited resources. Investing in new technologies, such as a mobile student dismissal management system can seem trying. Although, these systems are helping improve school’s daily. A digital dismissal system helps you improve your dismissal times, traffic congestion, communicate with parents, manage your after-school programs and buses, and manage your staff.

While traditional, old-fashioned dismissal processes (spreadsheets, walkie-talkies, PA announcements may have been good enough five, ten, even twenty years ago, today they may be not good enough to respond to today’s needs anymore.

Traditional dismissal processes that are manually based (spreadsheets, phone calls, etc.) or otherwise, just don’t offer the flexibility and efficiency of mobile-based student dismissal management systems. Instead of relying on a cumbersome and complicated dismissal process that you have been doing for years, it’s important to invest in a mobile student dismissal management system that doesn’t require walkie-talkies, spreadsheets, or secretaries answering up to 70-80 calls a day from parents making last-minute dismissal changes. They don’t require the time needed for notes and messages to be handed off to teachers and will not require to invest heavily in new hardware that can break down (scanners, etc.).

To help you better manage your parent engagement, manage your after-school programs/buses, and better manage your dismissal team, a mobile School Dismissal Management system is essential for the growth of your school.

Importance of Reporting

Generating reports help you make better decisions when it comes to managing your dismissal process. Reports take raw data and turn it into actionable information to make a better decision to meet your school’s needs. While reporting is important, it is also important that you don’t receive too much information that overwhelms you or your team or that is unnecessary in your decision making.

So, what are a few things that reports can help you decide on?

• How many car lines do I need to run?
• Can we manage staff members that I need on any given date to run the dismissal process?
• Does your school have the proper set up for emergency parent/child reunification program?
• Maybe you need to know how many bus routes to add in the next month

These are a few of the things that a good reporting system in a School Dismissal Management can help you make decisions on.

Another thing that a good reporting feature in a mobile School Dismissal Management can help you with is to understand all the important details that affect your students:

• Who are students going home with today?
• How many students are taking the bus home, home many are walking home?
• What students currently do not have a dismissal plan for the day?
• How many dismissal changes are made for that day?

Access the system from anywhere

Maybe you are away from your school, but you have to access the system, you should be able to access the system from any location to see a live dismissal progress report. You may also have multiple schools that you are responsible for. You will need accurate reporting for all these scenarios.

With a modern mobile student dismissal management system, you can run the process from just about anywhere. You don’t have to be In front of your desk, you should be able to generate reports from anywhere.

Limit unnecessary costs

Mobile-based student dismissal management systems are also much cheaper than systems that require hardware, such as bar code scanners, PA system, Walkie talkies, computer servers, etc. You can expect to pay low annual fees to get things started off.

Data Safety

Another benefit to a mobile student dismissal management system is; reports and data are stored in the cloud, they are much safer and cheaper than systems that require the use of a server that can be hacked or be expensive to maintain, update, and secure.

As you look to invest in a mobile student safety system, look for a provider that offers flexible pricing. Contracts may be optional, but please watch out for hidden fees.

Security is important for any school. Especially when it comes to your student and parent data. Mobile student dismissal management systems keep everything stored in the cloud. This is much safer than servers that can be damaged or hacked.

5 Things to consider when adding Dismissal Software to your schools

There are 5 things that you need to consider before adding a mobile student dismissal management system.

1) Will the system meet my needs?

•  Maybe you have 50 students in your school today, but you expect to grow to 200 in the next couple of years. Or you have 1,500 students today, but you expect to grow to 2,500 students in the near future. Maybe you have one campus today, you may have 3 campuses tomorrow. Make sure to add a mobile student dismissal management system that can grow with your school!

2) Long term contract or a short-term contract?

• You want to know upfront if you are going to be locked into a long-term contract or not. School budgets are limited, and it is important to know upfront if there are any long term or hidden charges

3) Do you need to invest in new hardware?

• You should be able to use your existing hardware and be able to add a new student dismissal management system with as little friction as possible. Dealing with new hardware that breaks down leads to chaos during the dismissal process. A delay in dismissal is especially not good for the parents, students, or staff.

4) Does the system have multiple features that will allow you to keep track of all the different aspects of the dismissal process?

• Make sure the system has detailed reporting, parent messaging, after school program management features, bus rider tracking, dismissal change management features.

5) Does the mobile student dismissal management system make the process easier for your students, parents, and staff?

• Making any changes to your dismissal process can be tricky, not everyone responds well to change. Make sure that the company that you work with has extended experience working with schools and programs of all types and sizes. You need to work with someone who will help you find efficient solutions for your schools.

These are a few questions you may want to ask. A few things you may want to think about before purchasing a mobile School Dismissal Management. Thank you for reading. Please visit our website (www.pikmykid.com) to learn more about our safety-focused student dismissal management system.