The Greenbush ESC Partnership
Kansas School Districts Struggle to Find Qualified Applicants
The heart of Greenbush Education Service Center programs is to provide students through out Kansas with diverse and equal educational opportunities. That mission propels Greenbush ESC to operate many community learning centers and alternative educational programs for those students that may have dropped out of school and need a second chance to receive their high school diploma. Since most school districts in the state are small rural districts, they often find themselves constrained by Staff and budget restrictions.
One of the many ways the Greenbush ESC is able to meet the challenges of the rural districts is to partner with influences dedicated to supporting the educational industry. One such partnership currently underway, teams industry leaders in the Education technology field with school districts across Kansas to help fill their human resource needs.
The Challenges: How do we hire without a Human Resources Department?
The Greenbush ESC realized that many of the rural Kansas school districts they served were having hiring and retention difficulties. Often, the districts weren’t in a position to locate, train and retain the staff, much less a have a human resource department dedicated to the enormity of the task. Furthermore, these school districts were quickly discovering they couldn’t compete with the larger Kansas districts and were missing out on opportunities to hire the most qualified teachers available. As Greenbush ESC stepped back to examine how this was impacting the schools they served, the realized that bottom line, the students were the ones who were missing out on quality education. Suddenly, Greenbush ESC was faced with a task, to create a human resources hiring tool that was easy to use and most importantly, effective in locating and hiring qualified applicants for the rural school districts.
We wanted to provide a tool so school districts have the latest technology to make their job efficient and easier to handle. With this, rural districts can have an affordable opportunity, allowing them to be on a level playing field with larger school districts, ” says Bart Swartz, Coordinator of Administrative Services at Greenbush ESC.
The Solution: High-Tech Partnerships
The Greenbush ESC realized that many of the rural Kansas school districts they served were having hiring and retention difficulties. Often, the districts weren’t in a position to locate, train and retain the staff, much less a have a human resource department dedicated to the enormity of the task. Furthermore, these school districts were quickly discovering they couldn’t compete with the larger Kansas districts and were missing out on opportunities to hire the most qualified teachers available. As Greenbush ESC stepped back to examine how this was impacting the schools they served, the realized that bottom line, the students were the ones who were missing out on quality education. Suddenly, Greenbush ESC was faced with a task, to create a human resources hiring tool that was easy to use and most importantly, effective in locating and hiring qualified applicants for the rural school districts.
We wanted to provide a tool so school districts have the latest technology to make their job efficient and easier to handle. With this, rural districts can have an affordable opportunity, allowing them to be on a level playing field with larger school districts,” says Bart Swartz, Coordinator of Administrative Services at Greenbush ESC.
needed to make hiring decisions. Gone are the days of multiple paper files, time consuming meetings with various decision makers and numerous phone calls needed to communicate with each applicant.
This is a complete HR solution,” says Swartz. You’ve got an online screening tool that gives you a lot of information about the applicant, all in one place. This makes the process much easier and you’re able to find the best candidates.”
Participating school districts will have access to the following:
SchoolRecruiter™ from Netchemia: This web-based Applicant Tracking and Hiring Management Solution tool provides away for school districts to attract and process a large amount of qualified candidates, while streamlining the hiring process. Applicants can upload their resume, add reference letters, attach letters of recommendation and cover letters and import reference check documentation. SchoolRecruiter even allows districts to seamlessly upload the applications they receive through Kansas Education Employment Board (KEEB) and sync with both the Haberman Screening Interview and the AESOP substitute solution."SchoolRecruiter not only helps school districts hire better applicants, but can also save them thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours compared with their existing paper-based hiring process. Small school districts have limited resources to hire the best applicants and have limited budgets to add new technologies. Netchemia has partnered with Greenbush to make SchoolRecruiter powerful and affordable for all their member districts regardless of district size,” says Graham Forman, Vice President of Sales with Netchemia.
Star Teacher Pre-Screener from The Haberman Educational Foundation: Districts can use this research-based pre-screening tool to review applicants online as a part of the application process. This provides school administrators an opportunity to interview teachers with the highest chance of success, increasing teacher quality, while decreasing employee turnover.
"The Star Teacher Pre-Screener allows a district to learn more about the candidate prior to an interview and determine who will have the privilege of being interviewed for a position as a teacher,” says Delia Stafford, President & CEO of The Haberman Educational Foundation, Inc.
AESOP Substitute Solution from Frontline Placement Technologies: This online system provides districts with an automated substitute teacher placement system that tracks and fills absences, evaluates substitutes and easily syncs with a school’s business software, all in one place. In fact, the 250+ districts that have switched to Aesop from other systems love the benefit of no hardware maintenance or upgrade fees, increased reporting capabilities, custom integrations with other software systems, and top-notch customer service.
“As the economy forces school districts to face budget cuts, Aesop saves districts money daily by significantly reducing absenteeism and substitute placement costs, says Dani O’Shaugnessy, Frontline Placement Technologies Director of Sales for North America. Substitutes can pro-actively search for jobs, and Aesop tracks all placement and absence information in real-time, eliminating inefficient piles of paperwork.”
Greenbush HR Document Library: Set up in a blog-style fashion, this web-based solution allows districts to store their documentation for administrator and coaching evaluations, FMLA paperwork and many other documents in a convenient online library.
“Districts large and small have the same needs; finding the best teachers for the children and youth of America. We can help each district by providing an interview protocol that will give them an opportunity to be more selective in their hiring practices. The children are the clients and they deserve nothing less than a great teacher,” says Stafford.
The Results: Time-Saving Technology Streamlines District's Hiring Woes
In the first month of the partnership, three Kansas school districts have already signed up for the SchoolRecruiter and Star Teacher Pre-Screener technologies, stating their need for efficiency within their district as this partnership’s top benefit."A lot of concern came from our rural districts asking for more efficiency in their hiring process,” says Swartz. Creating a partnership like this is our solution and it seems to be working as we keep receiving requests for more presentations on this exciting product."
For more information about The Greenbush Partnership, please contact Graham Forman at 800-490-9686 or graham.forman@netchemia.com.
