Coming Soon: SIS Dashboard Builder – A New Way to See and Understand Your Data

At FACTS, we’re always looking for new ways to innovate and build tools that help schools work smarter…which is why we’re so excited to announce the launch of SIS Dashboard Builder, a new reporting and visualization feature inside FACTS SIS!

SIS Dashboard Builder turns the data your school already trusts into clear, visual dashboards and customizable reports, making it easier to see trends, track key metrics, and understand what’s happening across your school.

Keep reading to learn everything you need to know.

Dashboard Builder is a new reporting tool within FACTS SIS that allows schools to view pre-built dashboards or create their own custom reports using PowerBI visualizations.

Instead of manually exporting data or piecing together reports, Dashboard Builder brings key information together in easy-to-understand visual views.

With Dashboard Builder, schools can:

• View important student, academic, and operational metrics in visual dashboards
• Combine data from multiple SIS sources into one report
• Customize dashboards based on roles, goals, or areas of focus
• Filter reports by school year or other criteria
• Export dashboards to Excel or PDF for deeper analysis or sharing

Most importantly, no additional data entry is required. Dashboard Builder simply helps schools get more value from the data they already maintain.

To make getting started simple, Dashboard Builder includes several pre-built dashboards designed around common school reporting needs.

These dashboards help schools immediately begin exploring trends and insights without building reports from scratch.

Available dashboards include:

• Admissions & Reenrollment Analysis – Track enrollment trends and admissions activity
• At Risk – Identify students who may need additional support
• Behavior – Monitor behavioral trends and incident patterns
• Demographics – View key student population insights
• Medical – Assess important health-related student information
• Report Card – Analyze academic performance data
• Student Information – See a comprehensive view of student demographics, enrollment status, and family contacts

While the pre-built dashboards are a great place to start, one of our favorite parts of SIS Dashboard Builder is the ability to create custom reports and dashboards, giving schools the flexibility to build reports that reflect what matters most to them.

Using a drag-and-drop interface and PowerBI visualizations, users can combine fields from multiple SIS datasets to create reports that highlight the metrics that matter most to their team.

For example, schools might create reports that:

• Track enrollment trends by grade level or program
• Monitor attendance or behavioral patterns over time
• Analyze academic performance across classes or departments
• Review demographic trends across student populations

Because reports can be customized and filtered, administrators can quickly adapt dashboards for different needs throughout the school year.

The goal of Dashboard Builder isn’t just to display data. It’s to make it easier for school leaders to see trends, ask better questions, and take action.

With clear visual dashboards, teams can more easily:

• Identify patterns affecting student success
• Monitor enrollment and retention trends
• Align leadership teams around shared metrics
• Share insights across departments

Instead of sorting through spreadsheets, schools can quickly access the information they need to guide conversations and decisions.

If you’re already familiar with FACTS Data Insights, you might be wondering how SIS Dashboard Builder fits in. Both tools help schools better understand their data, but they serve slightly different purposes.

Dashboard Builder lives directly inside FACTS SIS and focuses on helping schools visualize and report on the data already stored within their SIS. It’s ideal for quickly building reports, tracking trends, and creating dashboards around student, academic, and operational metrics.

Data Insights, on the other hand, provides deeper aggregated analytics across multiple FACTS systems, helping schools analyze trends across financial, enrollment, and operational data at a broader level.

In short:

• Dashboard Builder helps teachers and school staff visualize and report on SIS Data
• Data Insights helps principals and district leaders analyze trends across multiple FACTS platforms

Ready to learn more? Watch this short on-demand webinar to see Dashboard Builder in action.

We’re introducing this tool in a phased approach, so keep an out on your inbox to learn when this powerful tool will be enabled for your school!

This post is part of our series “An Educator’s Guide to AI,” written by FACTS team member and educator Kevin Donohue. Stay tuned for more posts from Kevin!

In November of 2022, ChatGPT released GPT-3.5, or the text-davinci-002 model, to the public, kickstarting the generative AI boom, which has impacted education, business, and society. Since then, Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, and many other companies have jumped in with their own generative AI models, promoting them as AI assistants capable of generating text, images, and videos in response to prompts or embedded in outside tools.

As with many fields, those of us in education had the opportunity to jump in with the public, and so did our students. Some teachers were quick to do so and students were even quicker. The rash of GPT-generated homework, essays, and work has caused widespread concerns about cognitive offloading, plagiarism, and the impact on learning.

Like most educators, I came to AI later. My first efforts at exploring generative AI happened fifteen months after GPT-3.5 became available.

As generative AI exits the terrible twos and fully moves into toddlerdom, I wanted to share some advice from my own successes and failures, along with insights from the many educators I’ve worked with in and outside of FACTS. Like a cool pool, I don’t recommend a cannonball in the deep end, but a gradual acclimation and accommodation as you move down the stairs. Let’s put on our AI suits, grab a prompting towel, and get ready to hit the pool.

Step 1: Get Settled

First, let’s learn a little bit about AI. Just as you would scope out the pool area for the best place to safely leave your belongings, we want to make sure we are ready for AI.

To start, check out our blog series on AI for educators:

Here are a few other great introductory resources to explore:

Make sure you understand how companies use and store your data, and what you want to expose and what you don’t. OpenAI and Claude require you to opt out of having your data used for training. Gemini’s education-based access says they will not use your data for training purposes. At the same time, like anything on the internet, whatever you type in is now out there somewhere on a server. So please put on your data sunblock!

Step 2: Test the Waters

After you get a sense of AI and how to be safe, it’s time to dip your toes in the water and start using it. Always start small: one or two tasks per week to get a sense of what AI can do practically for you.

A great starting step is to use its text-generative capabilities to assist in professionalizing emails. Use a basic prompt like, “You are an assistant to a school leader. Help me professionally answer this parent email in less than five sentences.” Be sure to review the generated text, tweak it to match your language and style, and avoid copying introductory text such as, “Sure, here’s a professional email.”

Another basic AI step is to have it be a research assistant. AI with web search capabilities can add relevant holidays and local events to your newsletter. With a simple weekly prompt, you can make your newsletter a strong touch point for families. Search can also analyze your school’s website or social media.

Step 3: Dive Deeper

After getting comfortable in the water of AI, it’s time to have fun and try some more advanced tasks. I usually recommend working with AI as a planning partner to assist with faculty meeting development or demographic analysis. Continue to be mindful of the data you are supplying and be sure to avoid your own cognitive offloading! Don’t drown in the pool of AI just because you’re comfortable.

The deeper end might include exploring further use of AI tools that can generate images and video or establishing a chatbot for your website. Consider how AI can collaboratively strengthen your team’s voice, smoothing rough edges and building a consistent message.

With practice at prompting and a commitment to learning, you can improve your workflows, communication, and productivity with ethical, efficient, and effective AI use.

I encourage you to be smart and spend some time with your new “pool noodle” of AI and ride in the lazy river of generative large language learning models. You’ll be making waves in no time. (Note: all these puns in the last paragraph are courtesy of ChatGPT-5).

About the Author

Kevin Donohue is the Leadership Coaching Manager for FACTS, where he also delivers customizable professional development and coaching in artificial intelligence for every group of stakeholders at a school. A Tampa native, Kevin joined FACTS after thirteen years teaching and leading in Catholic schools in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Boston. He lives in Arkansas with his wife, a professor of philosophy, and four children. This piece was written by him but checked by ChatGPT and the amazing humans at FACTS.

Simplify Childcare Compliance With Smarter Attendance Tracking

In the daily rhythm of a childcare center, attendance tracking might seem like a routine task—just another box to check between diaper changes and snack time. But for administrators, teachers, and families, it’s much more than that. It’s the foundation of compliance, safety, and trust.

Why Attendance Tracking Matters

Whether you’re a preschool director preparing for a licensing audit or a teacher managing ratios during nap time, attendance records are essential.

Attendance records help ensure:

• Compliance with state licensing regulations.
• Verification for subsidized care programs.
• Accurate child-staff ratios.
• Safe pickup and drop-off procedures.
• Reliable reporting for audits and inspections.

These aren’t just best practices—they’re requirements. And without the right tools, they can be time-consuming and stressful.

The Compliance Ripple Effect

Attendance tracking doesn’t just keep your center compliant—it keeps everything running smoothly. With accurate data, you can:

• Forecast staffing needs.
• Plan enrollment and capacity.
• Communicate clearly with families.
• Reduce administrative burden.

It’s the kind of operational efficiency that directors crave and teachers appreciate.

How FACTS Childcare Management Simplifies Compliance

FACTS Childcare Management makes attendance tracking effortless—and audit-ready. It’s a natural extension of the FACTS SIS ecosystem, meaning it eliminates duplicate entry, disconnected apps, and extra logins.

Here’s how it helps:

Requirement	How FACTS Childcare Management Helps
Daily attendance logs	Real-time tracking via teacher dashboard
Audit-ready reporting	Centralized, exportable logs for inspections
Pickup/drop-off verification	Secure parent messaging and digital check-in tools
Staff-child ratio monitoring	Automated alerts and ratio tracking
Subsidy program documentation	Integrated attendance records for reimbursement
SIS integration	One source of truth—no duplicate data entry
Parent engagement	Daily reports and secure messaging in one app

Built for Directors, Teachers, and Families

FACTS Childcare Management was designed with every stakeholder in mind:

• Directors get centralized oversight and reporting.
• Teachers get simple tools that don’t disrupt their day.
• Families get transparency and peace of mind.

And because it’s integrated with FACTS SIS, it’s already part of the ecosystem your school trusts.

Ready to Simplify Compliance?

FACTS SIS schools are invited to join our program and help shape the future of childcare management.

• Flat monthly pricing
• No per-student fees
• Built for FACTS SIS users

Learn more and sign up today at FACTSmgt.com/childcare-early-access/. Because when it’s easy for directors and teachers to maintain compliance, they can focus on what matters most—and families feel more informed, connected, and confident.

When we officially launched FACTS Data Insights last October, we mentioned that it was only the beginning…and now we’re releasing three more powerful dashboards!

Available on March 2, Phase 2 of Data Insights includes new dashboards designed to help schools proactively manage cash flow, evaluate financial aid effectiveness, and monitor enrollment health across the student/family journey.

Let’s take a closer look at these new dashboards and what they can help your school discover.

**Not sure what we’re talking about? Don’t worry. Check out our Data Insights FAQ blog for a refresher on what it is, who can use it, and more.

At a glance: Look beyond basic balances to understand what’s driving delinquency and view historical trends

The Delinquency Management Dashboards help you understand underlying trends that may be driving account delinquencies. By combining financial and demographic data, you can uncover trends to support more proactive collections planning.

Instead of pulling separate reports from multiple systems, leaders can now:

• View historical delinquency trends year over year
• Identify patterns by demographic data, time period, payment method, and more.
• Explore interactive dashboard filters

Your finance team notices an increase in past-due balances mid-semester. By using the Delinquency Management Dashboards, you can determine whether the trend is tied to a specific type of bill, payment plan length, certain demographic data, autopay enrollment, and more, and adjust communication, policies, or payment structures proactively.

The goal is not just reporting what happened. It’s seeing patterns early enough to respond and make changes.

At a glance: Explore how tuition, needs, income, demographic data, and awards work together to measure the impact of your financial aid strategy.

The Financial Aid Effectiveness Dashboards provide an in-depth analysis of financial aid applications, offers, and awards. By combining financial, demographic, and enrollment data, schools can evaluate not just who is receiving aid, but how effectively those dollars are supporting student success and school enrollment.

These dashboards provide more insight into:

• Trends in applications, offers, and award amounts
• Economic and demographic profile of families receiving aid
• Tuition coverage and award amounts by grade, income bracket or group, and more
• Downstream impacts on enrollment longevity and graduation rates

Your leadership team is evaluating next year’s tuition strategy. Using the Financial Aid Effectiveness Dashboards, you can assess whether aid recipients are returning at comparable rates to non-recipients and determine whether your current allocation strategy is supporting long-term retention goals.

Rather than relying on anecdotal evidence or assumptions, you can use data to guide financial sustainability and accessibility planning.

At a glance: Compare demographics across student milestones, as well as relevant data from other integrated solutions.

The Enrollment Lifecycle Dashboard provides visibility into five possible major milestones in a student’s tenure:

• Inquiry
• Application
• Enrollment
• Graduation
• Withdrawal

By visualizing movement across these stages, your school can see where gaps can be addressed and identify trends that might otherwise go unnoticed before they become unmanageable.

If inquiries are strong but applications are declining, the data shown in this dashboard may signal a weak point in your application process. If withdrawal trends are increasing at a specific milestone, leadership can investigate root causes before the impact compounds year over year.

Instead of reacting after enrollment numbers shift, schools can monitor leading indicators throughout the family journey.

Data Insights is included at no additional cost for eligible FACTS clients using multiple products across financial management, enrollment, and student information.

If your school is eligible to use Data Insights (using multiple FACTS solutions with at least one being a financial solution), click here to enable this feature.

Not eligible or not sure? Fill out this form to speak with a FACTS representative and get started with Data Insights today!

School leaders shouldn’t have to reconcile multiple reports just to understand enrollment health or financial risk.

With the addition of Delinquency Management, Financial Aid Effectiveness, and Enrollment Lifecycle dashboards, FACTS Data Insights continues to evolve, providing high-level, actionable insights that support confident, proactive decision-making.

As we mentioned during our initial launch, FACTS Data Insights will continue to grow and evolve, so stay tuned for more updates.

Want to share your thoughts about all things Data Insights? Join the conversation on FACTS^SPACE.

As we wrap up another year of learning, it’s the perfect time to pause and look ahead. With 2026 on the horizon and schools already thinking about next year’s goals, we’re doing the same here at FACTS. This roadmap brings together highlights from Q3 and exciting advancements coming in Q4 and beyond, showing how your feedback continues to shape the future of our platform. From more secure access to smarter scheduling, we’re focused on helping you finish the year strong…and start the next one even stronger.

Product Updates:

• Family Dashboard Beta Program
• Student Information System
• Application & Enrollment
• Financial Aid Management
• Payment Plans & Billing

Family Dashboard Beta Program (Cross-Product)

What’s Near with Family Dashboard Beta Program

Beginning in January, we will begin the beta program for Family Dashboard. This dashboard is a mobile-first intuitive hub where families can easily view and complete all required steps for admission and financial aid.

What’s Next with Family Dashboard Beta Program

Family Dashboard Pt. 2:

The Family Dashboard will keep growing, with billing, payment plans, notifications, academics, and additional features on the way.

Single Entry Point:

By the end, the dashboard will evolve into a unified experience for all FACTS users. Whether staff, families, or both, it becomes one universal gateway that brings every task, tool, and access point across the FACTS platform into a single experience.

Student Information System

What’s New with Student Information System

Unified Login:

Unified logins for all FACTS platforms, complete with multi-factor authentication, are being launched incrementally. Beta users are already active!

What’s Near with Student Information System

Dashboard Builder:

The new Dashboard Builder uses PowerBI to deliver clear, customizable dashboards that put your school’s data at your fingertips.

District Management Tool Phase 1:

Phase 1 of our District Management Tool delivers a more unified platform experience for district and diocesan leaders by centralizing SIS security access, district-wide communications, and NCEA reporting into one streamlined workflow. This brings greater visibility, consistency, and efficiency across the entire diocese or district.

Report Manager Enhancements:

We are enhancing SIS Report Manager to make generating and sharing reports faster, easier, and more intuitive than ever.

Scheduling Phase 2 Updates:

Phase 2 of Scheduling launches on December 8th, bringing Course Requests enhancements to Family Portal configuration, the student and parent experience, Student Requests, Grade Level Requests, and the new Teacher Recommendation workflow in Classroom and Scheduling.

What’s Next with Student Information System

District Management Tool Phase 2:

Phase 2 of the District Management Tool will empower district and diocesan leaders with aggregated, diocese-wide reporting, providing clear insights into attendance, student enrollment, and other key metrics to support data-driven decision-making.

Scheduling Phase 3 Updates:

Phase 3 of Scheduling will deliver an updated Courses & Classes experience, offering smoother management, improved usability, and more flexible scheduling settings across the board.

Scheduled Email Sends in Communications:

Enhanced communication tools are coming soon for the SIS, including the ability to schedule emails, making it easier to plan, automate, and streamline your outreach.

Application & Enrollment

What’s New with Application & Enrollment

Inquiry Series in Email Series Manager:

As the newest feature of Email Series Manager, Inquiry Series enables schools to create automated email campaigns that are sent to parents who submit an inquiry form. This feature makes it easier than ever to stay in touch with prospective families!

What’s Next with Application & Enrollment

Parent Experience Redesign:

We are modernizing the entire admissions journey by delivering a refreshed look, full mobile optimization, and a completely reimagined family experience that makes every step smoother and more intuitive. Modernization began with the Inquiry Series in Email Series Manager, and in 2026 we’ll begin development on brand new Application and Enrollment screens.

Financial Aid Management

What’s New with Financial Aid Management

IRS Integration:

• Most Recent Year Tax Return: We have added the ability to retrieve the most recent tax year transcripts from the IRS.
• W2s: We added the ability for applicants and co-applicants to get their W2s directly from the IRS in addition to their tax returns. This will include both the prior year and most recent year W2s as they become available through the IRS.

Turn Off W2 Wage Adjustment & New Year Document Override:

• Currently, our system automatically adjusts a family’s income based on the most recent W2 when paired with a prior year tax return and will use the most recent tax return when submitted by a family.
• Some of our schools and scholarship organizations have requested the ability to turn off this automatic adjustment, allowing them to receive more recent years’ W2 without it affecting the family’s assessment, or still request and use the prior year tax return in the assessment even when the most recent year has been received. This will be an optional setting.

Action Panel Preference Institution List in Alphabetical Order:

• We have ordered the preference institution list alphabetically when navigating from the action panel to assist with reviewing students.

New Fund Page and Application Report Pages:

• As part of our ongoing modernization, we’ve updated the Fund Detail Awarding and Application Report pages with a refreshed design, full-screen viewing, faster reporting, and improved user experience! You may now toggle between the new view and classic views.

What’s Near with Financial Aid Management

Annual Tax Return Changes:

• In Q4 every year, we update Financial Aid Management to account for IRS changes to tax documents.

Institution Defined Fields:

• We are adding the ability to assign attributes to schools titled “Institution Defined Fields” under a group so that reporting can be filtered by those attributes.

Address Validation:

• Using the USPS address validator, we can suggest an accurate address to the applicant via the application process. This will help prevent typos on the application.

What’s Next with Financial Aid Management

Prefill Custom Questions for Returning Users:

To continue to make the applicant process easier for returning families, we are adding the ability to select if the responses to a custom question should be pre-filled based on last year’s responses. This can be chosen per custom question, and applicants will still have the ability to update the response if something has changed from last year.

Address Verification:

We’ll be introducing an address verification process into the application process to verify the address provided by the applicant is their address.

Returning Scholar & Returning New to Aid:

We will implement a way to identify returning scholars from returning students that are new to financial aid so that institutions have more options on how they award aid and can more easily identify specific demographic groups.

Providing Adjusted Mean Income (AMI) in System:

We are investigating ways to bring the Education Choice for Children Act (ECCA) definition of income of Adjusted Mean Income (AMI) into Financial Aid Management.

Payment Plans & Billing

What’s New with Payment Plans & Billing

Adjustment Detail by Date Range report:

The Adjustment Detail by Date Range (no balances) report within FACTS Payment Plans provides charge, credit, and payment amounts for Institution Accounts, organized by Adjustment Reason, within a user-specified date range. This new report is derived from the existing Balances with Adjustment Detail report but focuses solely on date-specific details and excludes balance information.

What’s Near with Payment Plans & Billing

Parent Invoices for School Choice Programs:

To meet state requirements, we aim to provide parents with compliant documentation that supports state-level funding processes. This ensures regulatory adherence while simplifying the experience for families.

Payment Plan Modernization:

Modernizing the payment plan enrollment experience enables parents to sign up for a payment plan from any device, streamlining and simplifying the enrollment steps, and enhancing existing processes. The updated experience will include compliant disclosures and leverage a design system to ensure a modern, accessible, and user-friendly interface.

What’s Next with Payment Plans & Billing

Auto-Replenish Prepay Accounts:

We will be working on adding the ability for families to have their Prepay Account automatically refreshed from a saved account when the balance reaches a certain threshold.

Love this idea and want the most up-to-date news? “Like” the idea in FACTS^SPACE and you’ll be among the first to know!

Mass Transfer of Funds & Credits:

We are excited to announce that we will soon be adding the capability to transfer funds and credits in mass. Previously, we introduced this feature for balances due and received valuable feedback indicating a need for similar functionality for funds and credits.

As we move through the school year, our team remains focused on ensuring our solutions simplify your daily work and enhance the experience for your families. From scheduling improvements to financial aid enhancements, every update is designed with your feedback in mind. We can’t wait to share even more in the months ahead, so stay tuned and don’t forget to join the conversation in FACTS^SPACE!

Preparing families for the financial aid cycle is about more than just paperwork; it’s about building trust, providing guidance, and reducing barriers to access. By starting early, communicating clearly, and leveraging tools like IRS Integration, your school can take a proactive approach to help families feel supported at every step.

Keep reading for some proven strategies from FACTS experts to make the financial aid cycle stress-free for both your families and your school.

Before families even begin applying, it’s worth it to carve out some time to review and align your internal processes:

By setting the foundation early, you can reduce bottlenecks and set families up for success.

Families often delay applying because they don’t know where to start. Your school can guide them by sharing key reminders early in the cycle:

This communication doesn’t have to be formal or incredibly long. Families will appreciate any resources you can provide that frame financial aid as a partnership you’re playing an active role in and an investment in students’ future.

Clear, consistent messaging builds confidence. While your team doesn’t have to do all these things, here are some tried-and-true messaging tactics we’ve seen make a huge difference:

Schools that communicate steadily throughout the aid season see higher completion rates. Here’s a sample timeline:

Want to see more timelines from FACTS? Check out our Admissions Calendar!

To bring it all together, you can follow these eight guiding principles to create a strong, family-friendly financial aid process. These keys serve as a checklist to ensure both your internal team and your families feel supported from start to finish:

It all starts with one question: Is this the right school for my child?

A mom opens a browser and searches for K-12 schools in her area. She wonders if the academics and extracurricular offerings will work for her child and if the social dynamics will be a good fit. Meanwhile, a dad across town searches for a school that will truly get his child’s behavioral needs and his family’s financial situation.

For K–12 school leaders, enrollment begins in these moments. In today’s digital world, brochures and open houses aren’t enough to reach families. You need insight and agility, which you can achieve by leveraging AI.

The 2025 Future-Proofing School Communications report by NSPRA underscores this shift. Their survey results show that 91% of school communication professionals are already using AI to create personalized content, automate email responses, answer parent questions via chatbot, and forecast enrollment.

AI doesn’t replace the human work of connection; it enhances it. As the competition for family attention grows, schools using AI aren’t just keeping up, they’re standing out. Here are a few ways AI tools can transform your school’s enrollment and admissions process.

When considering integrating AI into your enrollment and admissions process, a simple place to start is adding an AI chatbot to your school’s website. Chatbots are nothing new, but AI chatbots have come a long way since their first iterations. They now use natural language processing to hold conversations that feel real, answer questions 24/7, and even sense hesitation or confusion. Adding a chatbot to your website can also give you valuable data to inform user segmentation and personalized outreach.

There are many AI chatbot options on the market. Here are a few to consider in your search:

• K12 Insight is designed for K-12 and helps districts provide effective customer service and create internal efficiencies.
• Bloombreach isn’t built specifically for schools, but it offers value in its focus on personalization, which can help you give each family the attention and information they need.
• MagicSchool.ai offers various AI tools for K-12 schools, including a customizable chatbot.
• Halda delivers personalized student engagement across channels, including dynamic website chat and automated outreach to help schools break silos and guide prospects.

Enrollment success begins with understanding what families actually care about. Traditional segmentation looks at broad demographics such as age, gender, or ethnicity. While this information is useful, AI can help you go even deeper, analyzing behavior, emotional cues, and preferences to group families by motivations.

Every family has different priorities when searching for a school. Some look for a school that is flexible enough to fit into their schedule, while others focus on academic rigor, college readiness, or extracurricular offerings. AI tools don’t rely on surveys alone. They learn from:

• Browsing behavior: What pages a parent visits on your school’s website, how long they stay, and what content they revisit
• Email engagement: What topics they open and click on, and when they do it (e.g., evenings vs. mornings)
• Chatbot interactions: The questions they ask, the tone they use, or even the urgency they express
• Form submissions: Fields like job role, child’s age, or language preference

Once you know what families care about, the next step is delivering relevant content without overwhelming your staff. AI makes it possible to do both.

For example, if a working parent repeatedly opens your emails at 9:30 p.m. and visits the extended care page on your website, that might indicate that they are a working parent who prioritizes flexibility. You can then leverage generative AI tools like Chat GPT, Grammarly, or Canva’s Magic Write to send them personalized content about your aftercare program, early drop-off options, and accessible communication options like SMS or app-based updates.

Or, if another parent asks your chatbot about kindergarten programs, you can add them to a stream of nurture emails (that you pre-made with your favorite generative AI software) that walks them through a step-by-step guide for applying to school and specific programs or classes of interest, easing their worries.

This type of responsiveness keeps families engaged and moves them closer to enrollment, all while reducing your team’s manual workload.

Want a more comprehensive list of AI software that can speed up your content creation process? Explore 10 AI tools for K-12 schools in our recent blog post.

Not every inquiry will lead to enrollment, but AI can help schools focus their energy where it matters most. Lead-scoring tools like Glide AI and Warmly AI are explicitly built to analyze digital behavior, which can help schools identify the families most likely to take the next step. These tools enable your admissions staff to:

• More accurately prioritize high-interest families
• Increase enrollment by reaching the right families at the right time
• Continuously improve processes as your school evolves and families’ needs change

For example, suppose a parent opens multiple emails, visits your admissions and financial aid pages, and signs up for an open house through a form on your website. AI tools like these can flag them as a high-potential lead and recommend a timely follow-up, like a tailored email from a counselor inviting them on a one-on-one tour.

Glide agents are designed for education, and they focus on streamlining admissions tasks and identifying top leads through engagement data. Warmly is not specifically tailored to the K-12 environment, but it offers predictive modeling that can recommend next steps and improve conversion over time.

Regardless of the tool you choose, the result is fewer missed opportunities and more meaningful conversations with the families most likely to enroll.

AI isn’t just helpful in the here and now. It’s a game-changer for long-term enrollment strategy, allowing schools to look beyond this year’s goals and start planning for the next. By leveraging predictive analytics to analyze historical enrollment data, schools can:

• Identify where prospective families tend to drop off, whether after submitting an inquiry, before attending a tour, or just before the deposit deadline.
• Pinpoint bottlenecks in the admissions process
• Spot patterns based on timing, demographics, or engagement
• Project enrollment trends earlier, allowing for more responsive outreach

For AI tools to do their job effectively, they need access to clean, connected data. That means achieving data interoperability across your SIS, enrollment portal, financial aid software, and communications tools. If your data is disconnected, AI insights remain siloed, and you’ll lose the full potential of prediction.

AI has the potential to reshape K–12 schools’ enrollment approach, making it more personal, efficient, and responsive to families’ needs. From identifying motivated parents to delivering tailored content and forecasting trends, AI gives school leaders the tools to build stronger relationships and effective strategies.

Need even more tips for admissions strategies that work for tight budgets? We’ve got you covered!

Across the world, schools are under pressure to do more with fewer resources: support more students, meet higher standards, and close wider gaps. AI is a powerful tool that’s already helping schools make the most of their resources.

In a 2024 report on how AI is shaping the future of learning, the World Economic Forum identified several opportunities that K-12 schools can leverage. As AI rapidly evolves, so does its potential to make teachers more effective and enhance students’ learning outcomes. They noted that “education systems must adapt to prepare young people for tomorrow’s technology-driven economies and to help students learn alongside these emerging technologies.”

The good news? Implementing AI doesn’t require deep technical skills or expensive software. In fact, many of the most useful AI tools for educators are simple, low-cost, and ready to use right now. If you’re curious about how AI might fit into your school but don’t know where to begin, the team at FACTS is here to help.

Many educators are already finding creative, low-barrier ways to use AI to support instruction and save time. Here are just a few examples of how AI is helping schools around the world right now, based on case studies from Digital Defynd:

• Personalized learning: AI can tailor instruction to each student’s pace and learning style.
• Automatic grading: Tools that analyze and score short-answer questions or essays can cut grading time in half and help teachers give faster feedback.
• Early intervention: By analyzing student data, AI can help identify students at risk of falling behind early in the semester.
• Career counseling: AI can match students with potential career paths based on their academic records, interests, and extracurriculars.
• Creative feedback: Some AI tools can evaluate student artwork and musical performances, offering constructive feedback that helps students grow.

You don’t need a tech degree or a data scientist on staff to benefit from AI. There are many free or low-cost tools available today that are as easy to learn as they are to use. Whether you want to automate lesson planning, generate parent newsletters, or get better insights into student data, there’s likely a tool that can help.

1) ChatGPT

What it does: ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that answers questions, explains concepts, and generates content.

Who it helps: Teachers and administrators

How it helps: It makes daily writing-based tasks like lesson planning, email drafting, and brainstorming more efficient.

Cost: Free (with optional paid upgrades)

Explore ChatGPT

2) Grammarly

What it does: Grammarly is an AI writing assistant that checks grammar, spelling, tone, and clarity.

Who it helps: Teachers and administrators

How it helps: It allows educators to quickly ensure communications to coworkers, leadership, and parents are accurate and professional.

Cost: Free (with optional paid premium version)

Explore Grammarly

3) Canva for Education (With Magic Write)

What it does: Canva with Magic Write is an AI-powered design tool for presentations, posters, and worksheets.

Who it helps: Teachers and administrators

How it helps: It enables teachers to create engaging visuals for lessons. And it can help administrators build compelling presentations for leadership or board meetings.

Cost: Free for educators

Explore Canva

4) Diffit

What it does: Diffit converts web content into student-friendly reading levels.

Who it helps: Teachers

How it helps: It adapts reading materials for diverse learners, differentiates instruction, and improves accessibility.

Cost: Free (with paid tiers available)

Explore Diffit

5) MagicSchool.ai

What it does: MagicSchool.ai generates lesson plans, quizzes, IEPs, and more.

Who it helps: Teachers and administrators

How it helps: It automates paperwork and lesson plan development, saving hours of prep time. It also supports special education documentation.

Cost: Free (with paid plans available)

Explore MagicSchool.ai

6) Khanmigo

What it does: The Khan Academy AI Tutor provides real-time support and tracks student progress.

Who it helps: Teachers and students

How it helps: It personalizes learning with tutoring for students and helps teachers identify student needs faster.

Cost: $4/month or $44/year (free pilot program available)

Explore Khanmigo

7) Curipod

What it does: Curipod creates interactive presentations with polls, quizzes, and visuals.

Who it helps: Teachers

How it helps: It makes lessons more engaging and supports formative assessment.

Cost: Free (premium versions available)

Explore Curipod

8) AIForTeachers.ai

What it does: AIForTeachers.ai supports lesson planning, grading, and analytics.

Who it helps: Teachers and administrators

How it helps: It reduces administrative work and improves productivity.

Cost: Free (with a paid upgrade available)

Explore AIForTeachers.ai

9) Socratic by Google

What it does: Socratic helps students solve problems and understand concepts via text, voice, or images.

Who it helps: Students

How it helps: It supports independent learning with step-by-step explanations.

Cost: Free

Explore Socratic

10) Quizlet (With AI)

What it does: Quizlet uses AI suggestions to assist with the creation of flashcards and quizzes.

Who it helps: Teachers and students

How it helps: It speeds up content creation for teachers and helps students study more effectively.

Cost: Free (with a paid premium option)

Explore Quizlet

AI is already transforming classrooms with simple tools that save time on grading, support diverse learners, and offer data-driven insights.

FACTS is prioritizing AI innovations that support educators, with built-in guardrails, transparency, and human oversight. Here’s a sneak peek at what we’re working on:
• Hub Help AI (live now!) – Get instant answers from FACTS documentation using generative AI, now available in HubHelp.
• Teacher AI Assistant & Student AI Tutor – FACTS is exploring early AI tools to help teachers draft communications, flag at-risk students, and suggest interventions. We’re also working on a student AI tutor that gives students on-demand academic help based on your curriculum.

You don’t need a tech degree to get started. Pick one idea or tool from this post, try it out, and see how it fits. The goal isn’t to overhaul your entire workflow overnight; it’s to take small steps toward a more efficient way to support your students.

Stay tuned as we explore more ways to support schools with AI!

In K-12 education, timing is everything. Whether it’s rolling out applications, re-enrolling families, or launching financial aid plans, each month brings key opportunities to attract and retain students. If your admissions team is constantly reacting instead of planning, it’s time to rethink your strategy.

FACTS recently hosted a webinar that laid out a step-by-step enrollment game plan designed to help schools not only survive the admissions season but thrive all year long. The core message? When you schedule your priorities, you don’t just stay organized, you get ahead.

A well-structured admissions calendar helps schools stay proactive and strategic. Here’s a month-by-month breakdown:

• October–November: Focus on early application advantage. You don’t have to make decisions at this point, but you can give prospective families an incentive to apply early by offering priority consideration for early applicants. Engage sibling families, launch shadow days, and reconnect with prospective families.
• December: Open rolling applications and ramp up recruitment efforts. The holiday season is a great time to show off your school community and invite prospects to experience your special traditions and culture.
• January: When families return after winter break, ensure tuition information is available for next year’s decisions. Collaborate with stakeholders to publish tuition rates, open grant and aid applications, and start re-enrollment campaigns. Early re-enrollment commitments help you understand your needs.
• February: Launch new student enrollment. Even if your school struggles with strong enrollment, it’s still best practice to publicize enrollment dates and encourage people to apply as early as possible.
• March/April: Continue rolling admissions if seats are available. This can, and often does, even go into the summer.
• May/June: Awarding financial aid may also bleed into the summer, but as we’ve mentioned, the earlier the better! This gives you more time to process and prioritize families.
• July: Although dates may vary, most schools activate the payment plans chosen by families this month.

With your admissions calendar in place, the next step is aligning your outreach to match its rhythm for maximum impact.

To make the most of each phase, align your outreach with the admissions calendar. If you follow the suggested schedule above, with new student enrollment beginning in February, your primary recruiting window will occur in September through January. This is when you should intensify your marketing efforts by increasing social media campaigns, hosting open houses, and reaching out directly to prospective families.

While recruiting looks different for every school, here are some things you can do during this crucial period:

• Flood social media with images of joyful families and students, as well as student success stories.
• Notify current parents about priority consideration for sibling applications.
• Invite feeder schools for special tours and open houses.
• Incentivize prospects to apply by a certain date for priority consideration.
• Invite prospects to holiday events to show off your school’s culture and community.
• Host a financial aid Q&A.

No matter what recruitment techniques you employ, consistency and timing are key to keeping your school top of mind. It’s also important to not forget your re-enrollment efforts, which should be happening in the same window.

With FACTS’ integrated admissions and enrollment tool, your school can track every step of the process, engage families more effectively, and simplify workflows from August to July. It’s not just about staying organized—it’s about staying ahead.

Ready to streamline your admissions process? Learn more about our admissions tool today!

Nearly a thousand FACTS users from across the country joined us June 23-26 in Salt Lake City, Utah, to explore new horizons at Elevate 2025. Attendees made connections, got hands-on training, found inspiration from our incredible lineup of speakers, and had a lot of fun.

Inspired by Utah’s beautiful landscape, this year’s conference theme was “Explore New Horizons,” and that we did! From exploring emerging trends in K-12 to hearing what’s on the horizon for FACTS products and improving competency for more efficient day-to-day use of FACTS’ solutions, Elevate 2025 brought valuable takeaways for everyone.

This year, we hosted over 350 sessions led by industry leaders and FACTS experts. Sessions covered a wide array of topics from evolving trends in financial aid to tips for navigating school choice, giving attendees plenty of options to build agendas that fit their unique interests. Throughout sessions, attendees collaborated with FACTS team members and each other to build valuable connections and engage in hands-on learning.

In several sessions, and throughout the conference, we provided users with exciting updates on the FACTS product roadmap, including introducing a new product, FACTS Childcare Management, which is currently in beta testing. We also shared information about new AI features added to our HubHelp platform and a demo showcasing how our Data Insights tool helps schools access actionable information to guide strategic decisions.

Through fireside chats, we gave attendees even more ways to connect with presenters and get answers to their questions in a smaller, more intimate setting.

Olympic figure skating legend Nancy Kerrigan joined us on day three of Elevate to share her story of resilience, growth, and the power of persistence.

She reminded us that success is a journey. It’s okay not to have it all figured out yet and to fail along the way, because often, the journey is even more rewarding than the result.

“Looking back, I did get to go and represent the U.S. at the Olympics, but it was about the journey of putting it all on the line,” said Kerrigan. “That is something I take much more pride in. It’s more about that journey and what you put into something, because we all fail.”

Along her journey as a figure skater, Kerrigan faced many challenges that helped her learn the importance of prioritizing self-care. She concluded her speech by encouraging the educators in the room to do the same.

She said, “Take care of yourselves because it is so important, so that you can keep giving, because I’m sure you’re always giving. If you keep putting it out, you need to also fuel yourself so you can keep being positive role models.”

One of the best parts of Elevate 2025 was hearing from our 2024 Teacher Innovation Award winners! All the winners were invited to attend this year’s event, where they were honored for and presented on their winning projects, including a CSI-style history lab, an interactive library experience that brings books to life, and a project where students apply Newton’s Laws of Motion to design an arcade game. They also got to attend a private lunch to celebrate their achievements!

These awards are just one of the ways that FACTS has committed to fostering innovation in the classroom, as we believe that creative environments create a lasting impact. While our 2024 winners are still reigning, we invite everyone to start thinking of innovative teachers in their life that could become our 2025 winners. The five educators selected receive an impressive prize package, including $5000, $1000 for their school, a free trip to present at Elevate 2026, and more!

Award nominations for the 2025 Teacher Innovation Awards will open September 15th. Keep checking our website for more details!

Not only was Elevate 2025 packed with a lot of learning, but it was also full of fun!

Throughout Elevate, we had several networking opportunities where attendees could connect. These included a reception featuring adoptable puppies from Hearts 4 Paws and a taste of some of Utah’s favorite dishes.

Our exhibit hall had a ton of interesting booths to explore, connecting FACTS users with innovative products and services that could help improve efficiencies, increase tuition revenue, and foster a positive school community. Thank you to our sponsors for all your support and help making Elevate 2025 so great!

To add even more fun to Elevate’s conference floor, Owlie’s Outpost offered an opportunity to take a break from the hustle and bustle of conference activities, chat with FACTS team members, and pick up Elevate 2025 merch—including exclusive t-shirts, belt bags, and custom Owala water bottles!

Elevate 2025 was incredible, but we already can’t wait to see everyone again next year! July 6-9, 2026 Elevate will return to sunny Orlando, Florida. Want to join us? Take advantage of our Super Early Bird Registration deal today!

We’re back with the second installment the FACTS quarterly product roadmap series (If you missed them check out the FACTS Q1 2025 updates here)! At FACTS, your feedback continues to guide how we build and improve our solutions, and we’re committed to keeping you in the loop every step of the way. In this update, you’ll get a look at what launched in April-June of 2025, what’s currently in progress, and what’s ahead across our product suite. Keep reading for your official Q2 2025 update.

Product Updates:

• FACTS Student Information System
• FACTS Application & Enrollment
• FACTS Financial Aid Management
• FACTS Payment Plans & Billing

Student Information System

What’s New With FACTS Student Information System

Scheduling Enhancements in FACTS SIS:
We launched the first phase of scheduling enhancements in FACTS Student Information System on June 9, 2025. This release included an update to the FACTS general scheduling application, updates to templates and patterns, and a new person locator in FACTS SIS, which can be used to locate students and staff members according to their daily schedule.

FACTS SIS Medical Module Redesign:
Released May 27, 2025, FACTS SIS has new medical enhancements, including a brand-new interface along with many at-a-glance features to help school medical staff manage student health records. We also completed key school-requested updates in FACTS SIS, like removing the ability to overwrite medical notes and allowing staff to select relationship types before emailing parents about medical events.

FACTS SIS Main Menu and Navigation Bar:
On June 9, 2025, we released a new main menu and navigation bar in FACTS SIS that includes a more modern look with icons for menu items and better placement of help icons.

What’s Near With FACTS Student Information System

New Dashboard Builder in FACTS SIS:
FACTS Student Information System is getting a new Power BI embedded reporting solution designed for K-12 school users. It enables educators to create, customize, and share dashboards using live data from the SIS. Users will have access to pre-built dashboards such as Student Information, Medical, Behavior, Admissions, or At-Risk. Additionally, school users can export reports for use in meetings or compliance reviews. With Dashboard Builder, FACTS making data accessible for all users!

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Progress in FACTS SIS:
FACTS is excited to share the latest progress on our rollout of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for SIS users.

Since our last update on MFA progress for FACTS Student Information System:

• We completed beta testing with a group of schools using Premier Integration.
• We gathered feedback from a broader set of users across FACTS SIS.
• Based on that feedback, we extended the authentication window from 4 hours to 8 hours, reducing the need for frequent re-authentication during the day.

What to Expect With these MFA Updates in FACTS SIS:

• Rollout Timeline: We are targeting to have all FACTS SIS schools enabled by the end of August 2025.
• Advance Notice: FACTS Schools will receive at least two weeks’ notice before MFA is enabled. Notifications will come from your Account Manager and appear directly in FACTS SIS via in-app messaging.

For more information on MFA and related changes for FACTS Student Information System, please visit: https://www.nbshubhelp.com/

What’s Next With FACTS Student Information System

Here’s a sneak peek at some things FACTS is exploring and building behind the scenes. These updates are on the FACTS product roadmap, but they might take a little time—good things are worth the wait! Want to share your thoughts or stay in the loop in the meantime? Join the conversation in FACTS^SPACE.

Continued Progress on Scheduling:
We continue to work on our large, comprehensive update to scheduling in FACTS Student Information System. This project will include an updated interface to make scheduling more intuitive for school staff, added features such as teacher recommendations and the ability to mass update classes, and improvements to reporting to help manage scheduling conflicts and ensure scheduling is complete. The project also includes enhancements to courses and classes that support the scheduling process. This is an ongoing initiative, with features released in phases.

• Phase 1 is live as of Q2 2025. Here’s what’s coming next:
• Phase 2 – Course Requests
• Phase 3 – Courses, Classes, and Rooms
• Phase 4 – Manual and Auto Scheduling Enhancements
• Phase 5 – Updates to schedule reporting

Application & Enrollment

What’s New With FACTS Application & Enrollment

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Coming to FACTS Application & Enrollment:
The FACTS Application & Enrollment teams released all changes needed to be ready for the multi-factor authentication (MFA) launch scheduled for Q3 2025.

What’s Near With FACTS Application & Enrollment

FACTS is introducing Inquiry Triggers to Email Series Manager in Application & Enrollment, enabling school administrators to automatically send nurturing emails to parents who submit an inquiry. This enhancement also includes an opt-out option for marketing emails, giving families greater control over the communications they receive.

What’s Next With FACTS Application & Enrollment

New Look and Experience for Inquiry & Application:
FACTS is continuing to modernize the Parent Inquiry and Application experience in Application & Enrollment! Over the next year, we’ll transform the look and feel of our platform to provide a more modern and visually appealing experience.

But that’s not all. Our focus is also on enhancing the user experience within FACTS Application & Enrollment with improved, intuitive, and streamlined workflows, all built with a mobile-first design approach to ensure accessibility and ease of use across devices. Expect a smoother, more efficient process that will make your parents’ interaction with FACTS Application & Enrollment more enjoyable.

Here is a sneak peek at the design:

Financial Aid Management

What’s New With FACTS Financial Aid Management

SIS Current Student Status Integration in FACTS Financial Aid:
Previously, we added the ability to show the SIS student admission status and new/returning status in FACTS Financial Aid Management custom reporting. Now, you can also add the SIS current student status for an up-to-date status throughout the school year.

IRS Integration Q2 Updates in FACTS Financial Aid:
FACTS Financial Aid now offers the ability for co-applicants who file separately to get their tax transcripts through IRS integration.

Supplemental Document Enhancements in FACTS:
Supplemental documents in FACTS Financial Aid allows schools to collect extra documents outside of the FACTS collected and reviewed tax documents.

FACTS added two enhancements in Financial Aid Management to increase flexibility in triggering document requests, ensuring only relevant families see them as a requirement. School administrators can now can conditionally request documents based on:

• Family Not Filing Taxes (DNF Status): Request documents from families not filing taxes, such as an attestation of non-filing.
• Internal Tracking Fields selection: This allows you to tie a document requirement to a checkbox or drop-down option for internal tracking, allowing you to add document requirements after reviewing a family’s submitted application. You will be able to leverage all the tools associated with internal tracking, such as being able to assign documents in mass within reports.

New Fund Details Page in FACTS Financial Aid:
As part of the ongoing modernization effort in FACTS Financial Aid Management, we’ve updated the Fund Detail Awarding page with a refreshed design, full-screen viewing, faster reporting, and an improved user experience!

Student Submit Date/Timestamp as a Reporting Field:
To assist with scholarship organizations prioritizing by submission date and time, we’ve added a student specific submit date and time stamp reporting field that can be added to all custom reporting areas.

Preference School Change Notification:
Scholarship organizations will now get a notification in the Daily Digest when a student’s preference school changes.

What’s Near With FACTS Financial Aid Management

Coming Soon for FACTS Financial Aid IRS Integration:

• Most Recent Year Tax Return: FACTS added the ability to retrieve the most recent tax documents from the IRS within the FACTS Financial Aid Management. This will become available as soon as the IRS fixes an issue with the 2024 transcripts, which is scheduled to be released July 20, 2025.
• W2s: FACTS will be adding the ability for applicants and co-applicants to get their W2s directly from the IRS in addition to the tax returns. This will include both the prior year and most recent year W2s as they become available through the IRS. We expect to release this on July 28, 2025.

Turn Off W-2 Wage Adjustment & New Year Document Override:
Currently, FACTS Financial Aid Management automatically adjusts a family’s income based on the most recent W-2 when paired with a prior year tax return and will use the most recent tax return when submitted by a family.

Some of our schools and scholarship organizations have requested the ability to turn off this automatic adjustment in FACTS Financial Aid Management, allowing them to receive more recent year’s W-2s without it affecting the family’s assessment, or still request and use the prior year tax return in the assessment even when the most recent year has been received. This will be an optional setting.

What’s Next With FACTS Financial Aid Management

Prefill Custom Questions for Returning FACTS Users:
To continue to make the applicant process easier for returning families, FACTS Financial Aid Management is adding the ability to select if the responses to a custom question should be pre-filled based on last year’s responses. This can be chosen per custom question, and applicants will still have the ability to update the response if something has changed from last year.

Payment Plans & Billing

What’s New With FACTS Payment Plans & Billing

3rd Party Payment Function in FACTS Payment Plans:
FACTS Payment Plans & Billing now has the ability to record a Payment at an Institution from a third party, such as payments from school choice programs. This will give schools better reporting on the money received from school choice programs and ensure the parents’ payment summary is accurate, as it will not include these payments.

What’s Near With FACTS Payment Plans & Billing

FACTS 3rd Party Payment at Institution Phase 2:
Following the initial release of this enhancement in FACTS Payment Plans & Billing, we received valuable feedback that highlighted opportunities for greater flexibility. As a result, we will be adding support for multiple editable third-party adjustment reasons.

What’s Next With FACTS Payment Plans & Billing

Auto-Replenish Prepay Accounts Coming to FACTS:
FACTS is working on adding the ability for families to have their Prepay Account automatically refreshed from a saved account in Payment Plans & Billing when the balance reaches a certain threshold. Love this idea and want the most up-to-date news? “Like” the idea in FACTS^SPACE and you’ll be among the first to know!

Mass Transfer of Funds & Credits in FACTS:
FACTS is excited to announce that we will soon be adding the capability to transfer funds and credits in mass in FACTS Payment Plans & Billing. Previously, we introduced this feature for balances due and received valuable feedback indicating a need for similar functionality for funds and credits.

Parent Invoices in FACTS for School Choice Programs:
To meet state requirements, FACTS aims to provide parents with compliant documentation that supports state-level funding processes. This ensures regulatory adherence while simplifying the experience for families.

Payment Plan Modernization in FACTS:
Modernizing the FACTS Payment Plan enrollment experience enables parents to sign up for a payment plan from any device, streamlining and simplifying the enrollment steps, and enhancing existing processes. The updated experience will include compliant disclosures and leverage a design system to ensure a modern, accessible, and user-friendly interface.

We know that managing school data across multiple systems can feel like an uphill battle – which is why we recently hosted a webinar for FACTS schools to explore how seamless data integration can drive better outcomes for students, educators, and administrators alike.

Hosted by our Directors of Software Development, Jeff Fry and Brittany Wilson, the webinar broke down what data interoperability really means, why it matters, and how schools can benefit from a well-integrated ed-tech ecosystem. Here’s a quick recap of the key takeaways from the discussion.

What Is Data Interoperability?

At its core, data interoperability refers to the ability of different systems and software to communicate and share information in a standardized and meaningful way. In a school setting, this means that student information, enrollment details, financial aid records, and academic performance data can flow seamlessly between platforms without requiring tedious manual entry or reconciliation.

Without interoperability, schools often face discrepancies in data reporting. For example, one system might list 152 enrolled students while another lists 160 – creating unnecessary confusion and extra work to align the numbers. When data is interoperable, these inconsistencies are minimized, and administrators can focus on making informed decisions rather than troubleshooting mismatched records.

The Benefits of Interoperable Data

Data interoperability isn’t just about convenience; it’s a game-changer for schools looking to enhance collaboration, improve efficiency, and personalize learning. Some of the key benefits discussed in the webinar include:

Seamless Collaboration: When departments across a school or district have access to the same accurate data, communication and decision-making become much more efficient.

Personalized Learning Experiences: With integrated data, educators can tailor instruction based on a holistic view of student performance, attendance, and engagement.

Efficiency and Cost Savings: Reducing manual data entry and reconciliation efforts means less time spent on administrative work and more resources directed toward student success.

Data-Driven Decision Making: Schools can leverage data dashboards and insights to track trends, monitor student progress, and make informed strategic decisions.

FACTS’ Commitment to Interoperability

FACTS is continuously enhancing our product suite to improve data integration. In the webinar, Jeff and Brittany highlighted several initiatives we’re working on, including:

– OneRoster integration to streamline data exchange between systems.

– An external developer portal offering API-based access to school data.

– Ed-Fi certification for FACTS SIS, aligning our platform with industry-wide data standards.

– Advanced reporting solutions, including our new Data Insights product and Dashboard Builder powered by Power BI, providing administrators with easy-to-use visual data tools.

These advancements are designed to ensure that schools using FACTS can seamlessly access and utilize their data, making their operations smoother and more effective.

See Interoperability in Action

During the webinar, we also shared a sneak peek at our Data Insights dashboards, which help schools visualize key metrics like enrollment trends, financial aid distribution, student demographics, and more. By integrating data from multiple sources, these tools empower schools to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

Want to dive deeper into how data interoperability can transform your school’s operations?

Watch the full webinar on-demand to explore these concepts in greater detail and see firsthand how FACTS is leading the charge in data integration for K-12 education.

Consultation is a vital opportunity for private schools to collaborate with their Local Education Agencies (LEAs) to ensure equitable access to federal funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). For your students and teachers to benefit from these resources, it’s important to understand the timeline, process, and your role in advocating for their needs.

The consultation process must be timely, meaningful, and ongoing by law. While discussions may happen throughout the year, late winter to early spring is a key time to watch for your LEA’s outreach. This is when LEAs will likely send Intent to Participate forms to private schools. Responding promptly to this form is critical, as it determines your eligibility to access services for the next school year.

We strongly encourage every private school to check “Yes” on their Intent to Participate form. Here’s why:

1. These Are Your Students’ Funds: Federal funding, including Title I and Title II allocations, is intended to support your students’ academic needs and your teachers’ professional needs.
2. Equity and Opportunity: Participating ensures your students and teachers receive the resources they are entitled to, leveling the playing field for their success.
3. Flexibility in Use: Responding “Yes” does not commit your school to a pre-defined program. It opens the door for meaningful discussions with your LEA about tailoring services to meet your school’s unique needs.
4. Maintain School Autonomy: Checking “Yes” also ensures access to essential services while maintaining your school’s autonomy. It does not mean you’re relinquishing control or inviting unwarranted government interference into your school’s operations or decision-making.

Once you’ve confirmed your intent to participate, the next step is to schedule a planning meeting with your LEA. This meeting is a crucial step in the consultation process, ensuring that your school is fully prepared to maximize the benefits of federal funding. Here’s what to expect and prepare for:

• Consultation With Your LEA: The LEA will usually contact your school to schedule this meeting. During the consultation, they will explain the program specifics, ensuring your school understands the expectations, obligations, and opportunities associated with federal funding.
• Program Planning: Collaborate with the LEA to develop a detailed plan outlining how the federal funds will address the specific needs of your students and teachers. During this discussion, you can also request to use a trusted third-party provider, like FACTS, to implement programs, ensuring the services are tailored to your school’s unique needs and requests.
• Data Collection and Reporting: Be prepared to provide data on student demographics, academic performance, and other relevant metrics. This information will help demonstrate your school’s eligibility and track the progress of the funded programs.
• Compliance Requirements: The LEA will review federal compliance regulations with your school. This includes ensuring that appropriate procedures are in place to meet the funding program requirements.
• Establish Clear Goals: Work together to set measurable objectives for the program’s outcomes, such as improving academic performance, offering targeted interventions, or enhancing teacher professional development.
• Clarify Roles and Responsibilities: Define the roles of your school and the LEA in implementing and managing the program. This ensures accountability and smooth coordination.

Participation in the consultation process is your chance to advocate for the resources your students and teachers need to succeed. By responding promptly, preparing thoroughly, and engaging actively with your LEA, you can ensure that federal funds are used effectively to support your school community.

At FACTS, we understand that navigating the consultation process can be complex. Our team is here to provide guidance, support, and tools to help your school make the most of the opportunities available. To make it even easier, we’re offering a free consultation checklist designed to help private schools prepare and stay organized throughout the process. Don’t leave funding on the table—take the first step by saying “Yes” and partnering with us to plan for a successful school year ahead.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can assist your school during consultation season.

Parents value flexibility and convenience when it comes to paying for their student’s tuition. By offering payment plans at your school with tools like FACTS Payment Plans, you can simplify tuition payments for current families and stand out to new families looking for the right school for their student.

But how? Here are some ways implementing an efficient tuition management system can elevate your school’s marketing and bring in new families while remaining effective and efficient for your school staff.

Offer an All-in-One Digital Experience for Families

Your families are busy. Make it simple for families to manage their tuition finances with a tuition payment solution like FACTS Payment Plans where they only need one login to access both student information and financial details, showing your school’s commitment to convenience and efficiency.

With FACTS’ suite of solutions, families can handle everything from tuition payments to extracurricular fees all in one place and on their own time, maximizing convenience for them and reducing time spent by your administrative staff answering their questions.

Reduce Enrollment Barriers With Tuition Payment Plans

Integrating tuition contracts and payment plans into your enrollment process eliminates friction and makes it easier for families to commit to joining your school community. With FACTS Payment Plans, parents have the option to pay for their student’s tuition over a longer period rather than all up front, giving them more room to breathe and peace of mind. Offering these plans alongside tools like FACTS Incidental Billing and Prepay Accounts also reduces enrollment barriers for prospective families, positioning your school as flexible and accommodating to families with various needs.

Free Up Time for School Staff With Automated Payment Processing

FACTS Payment Plans include easy-to-use dashboards that make it simple to stay on top of payments, allowing for better budgeting and improved cash flow that can be invested back into the school. Automated payment processing and advanced accounting features also free up your administrative team to focus on building relationships with families and students.

Build Trust With Consistent Payment Communications

Reduce misunderstandings and foster trust with transparent, consistent communications regarding tuition and fees between your school and families. Clearly outlined enrollment contracts and tuition agreements set shared expectations from the start, minimizing confusion and building confidence in your school’s processes. Offer flexible payment options within these agreements to reflect your school’s commitment to understanding and supporting diverse financial situations. FACTS Payment Plans make it simple to maintain clear communication while giving families more options to pay for tuition. When families feel informed, respected, and supported, they’re more likely to stay engaged—helping improve student retention and reinforce the strong, lasting connections your school community is known for.

Offering tuition payment options that are flexible and affordable can be a crucial part of making your school the right choice for more families. Learn more about FACTS Payment Plans to see how.

The role of the school business manager has always been diverse and demanding. Covering a wide range of functions and dealing with many stakeholder groups, school business managers wear many hats – and the demands on them are growing as the education sector evolves.

In a day, a business manager may find themselves reconciling accounts, dealing with staff issues, negotiating supplier contracts, acting on behalf of the principal, arranging a board meeting, supporting the fundraising committee, and more. For this reason, they must have skills in a range of areas including finance, management, project management, and compliance.

Equally important is that they’re supported by a comprehensive and intuitive payment platform that allows them to manage payments flexibly, securely, and efficiently. Purpose-built school payment software like FACTS enables schools to simplify and streamline their approach to payments, providing more control, visibility, and convenience to both administrators and families.

Managing tuition payments effectively is a key challenge for schools. Many still take a manual approach which is time-consuming and inefficient.

Schools without a flexible, centralised payment system will often have teams of staff who take many weeks to coordinate the payment process at the start of each school year. Managing year level or subject-specific pricing, discounts, and any credits or debits to be applied to an account becomes labour intensive and error-prone. Additionally, neither the school nor families have visibility of their financial position.

FACTS supports K-12 schools to deliver a better payment experience for families while reducing the workload of their administrative team. Our world-class billing engine gives both user groups real-time visibility of payments made, scheduled and missed, 24/7, wherever they are.

Paper-based forms and payment slips are unpopular with administrators and families alike. Easy to forget or misplace, it’s inconvenient for families to manually record information the school already holds about them – and collecting payment information on paper forms is not PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliant.

FACTS’ flexible online forms allow simple and efficient management of permission and payment for extras like school excursions and trips. FACTS forms collect information via a secure and encrypted platform, with any costs automatically added to each family’s account, so no cash or manual payments are needed. It’s a more flexible, convenient, cost-effective, and secure way for schools to manage permissions and payments required throughout the year.

Many schools without a comprehensive payment system lack a strong understanding of their current financial position. Managing tuition fees, fundraising efforts, and incidental expenses in separate spreadsheets can make it impossible to get an accurate real-time view of a school’s financial health.

School payment software allows administrators to view key financial metrics at a glance. Business managers can build customised reports and schedule these to be created and shared with key stakeholders on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Powerful analytics let the administration team identify and manage arrears, hardship, and other financial aspects with confidence the latest information is at their fingertips.

Keeping personal and payment information safe is imperative for all schools. The traditional approach of sending forms home in schoolbags to be completed and returned presents many opportunities for this confidential information to be lost.

Tools like FACTS allow schools to collect and store this information securely and give families the opportunity to update their information at their convenience via a secure online portal, 24/7. This means no need for the school administration team to chase forms and payments or enter data manually. It’s also more efficient for families, who won’t be asked to provide the same information each time there’s a camp or excursion.

FACTS is PCI level 1 compliant, the highest level of validation given by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS).

FACTS supports a seamless flow of information between a school’s administration team and its teachers, students, and families. From enrolment to graduation, it allows information to be captured and stored securely – meaning no manual data entry for schools, and no need for families to provide the same information time and time again.

A complete school payment platform supports business managers to meet the competing aspects of their role with agility, and give families and the administration team better flexibility, control, and visibility.

Sending your child to school can be a significant investment. While school tuition fees vary considerably across Australia, the average total cost of education for a child starting at an independent school could be more than $340,000.

For families that choose private schooling, tuition fees are likely to be a large portion of their household budget. For this reason, the way your school manages tuition fees is likely to be a key decision factor for many families.

Schools generally put a lot of time and effort into ensuring their word-of-mouth, website, social media channels, and presence on review sites such as the Good Schools Guide position them as an attractive choice for potential students. However, once families have narrowed their choices down to their top two or three schools, aspects like the ease of the enrolment process and a flexible approach to tuition fees can be critical differentiators.

So, is the way your school manages tuition fees part of your marketing arsenal? Here’s how to highlight payment plans in your school’s marketing efforts and give families confidence that you’re there for them if times get tough.

Publicise that you provide flexible payment options and due dates. Rather than expecting the year’s tuition up front, consider offering weekly, bi-weekly, quarterly, monthly or term-based payment plans. You should also let families choose from a selection of regular due dates so that they can pick one that reflects their payroll schedules.

Give families the flexibility to get ahead on tuition payments by allowing them to make online payments ahead of the due date. When you give families options, they’ll feel more confident that they can afford to send their child to your school.

Specialist tuition payment solutions like FACTS allow you to provide this level of flexibility without creating reconciliation nightmares. FACTS lets you simplify fee tracking and management and gives you real-time visibility of payments and cash flow projections.

When families contact your school to request a tour, it’s fair to assume that they’ve done their research and know about your school’s ethos, how your results rank against other local schools, and how much it costs to attend.

Be transparent about tuition fees on your school’s website and include information about families’ options when paying fees and applying for financial aid. Tuition fees will be one of the first aspects families consider when researching and comparing schools, so you should make it easy for them to find this information and give them comfort that you offer affordable and flexible payment plans.

Fee affordability can be a challenge for families throughout their time with your school, not just at enrolment. Don’t let financial constraints become a reason students leave. Check in with families each year or semester to ensure they’re comfortable with their payment plan and know that there’s a range of payment options available to them.

Offering flexible tuition payment plans is a great way to attract new students and support existing families. It does more than give families another payment option – it builds your reputation as a school that cares and is willing to work with families to keep them enrolled.

Marketing the affordability options your school offers shows that you’re willing to let families take control of their finances and open to adapting to meet changing situations and needs. By making families’ lives easier, you can build a strong and supportive school community.

Late tuition fees are a reality for most K-12 schools. However, the way they’re handled can be the difference between a growing arrears balance that’s hugely time-consuming to control and a small number of late payers who are generally managed automatically without any work from your administrative team.

Here are four tips for optimising your school’s approach to late tuition fees.

If you don’t already have an automated system managing your tuition payments, this is an absolute game changer. Automating tuition fee payments means significantly less administration for your school to manage and makes things simpler and more convenient for families.

Tuition payment solutions like FACTS help schools to streamline and simplify tuition fee management while giving them complete oversight. With school fees securely transferred on pre-agreed dates or frequencies and automatically matched to the correct student account, there’s no data entry, manual reconciliation, or record-keeping required.

Schools that manage late tuition fees successfully usually have a clear tuition fee policy that’s regularly shared with the school community and accessible via the school’s website or family portal.

Your school’s tuition fee policy should make your approach to late fees clear and be signed whenever a new student is enrolled. Ensure it covers what happens if a regular fee payment is missed, the amount of time families have to catch up on any overdue payments, and next steps if the missed payment is not received within the stated timeframe. It’s best not to formally communicate any grace periods within your fee policy as this could encourage delinquency.

A tuition management solution that sends automatic reminders to families when fees are due (and if payments are missed) will significantly reduce the number of late payments your school receives. However, you should also have a trigger point for where manual intervention is required if an account is slipping into serious delinquency.

Chasing money is never fun, but proactively reaching out to families who are falling into serious arrears, particularly if they’re usually prompt payers, will allow you to understand their situation and agree on a payment plan to recoup these funds.

If a family is experiencing hardship, work with them to create a tailored payment plan that sees them make a regular contribution towards their tuition fees. Depending on their situation, you might push due dates out by an agreed period, split their arrears balance across the remaining payments due in that school year, or simply extend their existing payment schedule by a month or two.

Providing a range of payment options also makes it easier for families to pay their fees. Ensure you accept credit and debit cards and online and phone payments. Even if you don’t usually accept cash payments for tuition fees, you might consider making an exception if this will make it easier for certain families to catch up on their payments.

Your school’s approach to late tuition fees should be clear, consistent, and professional. By letting families know what to expect, following the same process each time an account falls into arrears, and managing overdue payments with empathy and a commitment to get things back on track, your school can ensure late tuition fees don’t become an unpleasant matter for your administration team and impacted families.

FACTS Payment Plans is a powerful platform that supports a best practice approach to managing tuition fees. Automated payments let staff and families spend less time and effort managing tuition and enjoy better convenience, transparency, and security. With FACTS, managing late tuition fees is simple and straightforward.

Tuition payments are at the heart of your school’s operations. Without a solid approach to tuition management, managing school fees can be a time consuming and error-prone process. Tuition payment solutions like FACTS help your school streamline the way you handle finances by simplifying tuition fee payment tracking and management.

With tuition fees remitted on your preferred dates, both your administrative team and school families will save considerable time and effort compared with a manual approach.

Here are five of the most significant benefits of automating tuition fee payments.

Automatic payments mean that the bulk of school fees will arrive on time and in full – without any work from your administrative team. A digital approach means all payments are automatically matched to the correct family account, meaning no data entry, manual reconciliation or record-keeping is needed. FACTS offers the highest data security standards in the industry, providing peace of mind that all transactions are encrypted and secure.

Life is busy. Between work, running a home, and managing children’s schooling and extra-curricular activities, there’s a lot for parents to stay on top of. Automated tuition fee payments take one big thing off the to-do list for busy families, giving them peace of mind that school fees are taken care of without anything for them to do.

A tuition management solution that provides families with automatic reminders that fees are due to be debited will dramatically reduce the number of late payments your school receives. However, there will always be occasions where payments are declined due to a lack of funds. When this happens, your tuition system should provide families with automatic notifications of failed payments and overdue reminders, ensuring a streamlined process with no manual intervention from school staff required.

Automatic payments provide your school with consistent and predictable income each month. Your administrative team will always have a clear view of your current and expected school fee income, taking the guesswork out of budgeting and managing cash flow.

Automated tuition fees provide better transparency for all school stakeholders. The administrative team, school principal, and families have a real-time view of payment status and account balances, with one source of truth meaning no missed payments or payment disputes. External stakeholders can be given access to view your school’s financial position and expected income at a glance.

FACTS lets you monitor important financial metrics and create custom reports for your school, and schedule daily, weekly, or monthly notifications to send to key people.

Automated fee payments allow staff and families to spend less time and effort managing tuition and more time focusing on students. Automatic billing will help your school take a more structured approach to financial management while providing better convenience and transparency for families.

FACTS is a powerful tuition management solution that supports a best practice approach to tuition fees. It expands payment options for families and simplifies billing, budgeting, cash flow management, and financial reporting, empowering school staff to spend more time on the things that matter.

As business offices evaluate their processes in the wake of changing school policies and ever-evolving technology priorities, keeping payment compliance top of mind is critical. Maintaining compliance for software applications that process payments is demanding, requiring regular audits and reports as well as knowledgeable staff.

The security of cardholder information is of the highest importance. Schools face a choice: Install a software application on premise and maintain PCI DSS compliance for all payments processed at your school or partner with a Software as a Service (SaaS) vendor or Application Service Provider (ASP) who maintains the software to meet PCI DSS compliance, reducing the school’s compliance scope.

Payment processing applications are governed primarily by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), which maintains security policies and procedures based on requirements from the major payment brands, like VISA.

“PCI DSS covers the security of the environments that store, process, or transmit account data,” said IT Manager for Cyber Security at FACTS. “This includes requirements for the security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, secure software design, security awareness training, and other critical protective measures.”

The Payment Application-Data Security Standard (PA-DSS), established in 2008, is derived from the PCI DSS, and details payment application requirements to be PCI DSS compliant (and therefore what a payment application must support to facilitate the school’s PCI DSS compliance). PA-DSS requirements are intended to help software vendors develop secure payment applications that support PCI DSS compliance when installed within their customer’s PCI DSS environment.

“In other words, PA-DSS validated payment applications must facilitate – not prevent – PCI DSS compliance,” FACTS IT Manager continued. “When a school purchases a PA-DSS validated product, they receive a software application and the responsibilities for the infrastructure support and maintenance that will support the application; installing the application in a PCI DSS complaint manner; and maintaining, administering, and supporting the application, all within their PCI DSS environment.”

This entails a lot of work for the school. IT staff will use the vendor’s implementation guide to install the application on premise in a PCI DSS compliant manner. The PA-DSS software is required to meet applicable PCI DSS requirements, including:

Compliance requirements vary depending on the number of transactions processed annually by an institution. A smaller school with a limited number of transactions per year may be able to complete a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), a self-validation tool to assess security for cardholder data. Large schools that process high volumes of payment transactions may be required to work with a PCI Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) to complete more in-depth assessments.

FACTS is PCI DSS Level 1 assessed based on the number of transactions processed annually.

A PCI DSS assessment can take around two or three months, and will evaluate evidence for compliance with PCI standards that covers an entire year. This validates that their business as usual activity — the activity throughout the year, not just during the evaluation period — supported PCI DSS compliance requirements.

The PCI QSA annually confirms you are meeting both technical and non-technical requirements throughout the year. In order to accomplish this, the PCI QSA requires evidence, interviews, and also some hands-on reviews of devices, files, and procedures during the assessment period.

The PCI QSA assures that you meet all PCI DSS requirements.

“Many people are unaware that there are many non-technical requirements that are evaluated, including hiring practices; security awareness training; assigning roles and responsibilities to meet the requirements; maintaining and testing incident response; and creation of policies, standards, and processes to support the intent of the requirements,” FACTS IT Manager said. “There are also many technical requirements, including periodic reviews of firewalls and routers, file integrity monitoring, anti-virus and malware protection, backup and restoration validations, logging activities, meeting retention requirements, timely patching of devices, operating systems and applications, and vulnerability management – including internal and external quarterly scans and annual penetration tests. Those are just some of the many technical requirements that will need to be maintained and will be reviewed by the PCI QSA.”

On the other hand, schools that choose vendor-hosted solutions or SaaS software find that they have reduced their compliance scope, since the application software provider is then responsible for ensuring that the hosted environment is secure.

“The PCI SSC does not require that an entity use a PA-DSS validated application. An application with the PA-DSS certification only denotes that the application can be configured to meet PCI DSS requirements,” FACTS explained.

When a client decides to use our PCI DSS validated SaaS solutions, they know that FACTS adheres to industry-leading PCI standards to manage our network, secure our web-based applications, and set policies across our organization. FACTS has its own cyber security group, which works closely with the corporate cyber security group of parent company Nelnet, Inc. Together we employ an array of experts in compliance and security. We are assessed as a Level 1 PCI DSS Service Provider, which means FACTS is responsible to ensure that:

FACTS ensures that PCI compliance is part of our business-as-usual process by monitoring security controls, reviewing hardware and software technologies to ensure they are supported by the vendor and meet security standards, evaluating changes to the environment or the organizational structure, performing periodic reviews and communications to confirm all PCI DSS requirements continue to be in place and personnel are following secure processes, and verifying that appropriate evidence is maintained to assist in the PCI DSS compliance assessment.

While protecting cardholder data is key, schools must take into account the full scope of their compliance responsibilities. This becomes especially important as many institutions are facing tighter budgets. In order to continue to best serve your students and the broader school communities of alumni, sports fans, donors, and neighbors, institutions must be able to provide flexible payment options that are mobile-friendly and secure.

Knowing that FACTS is taking the above responsibilities provides customers assurance that we are taking the proper steps to secure the data they have entrusted to us.

You don’t have to work in the education sector to know that the last few years have been tough for teachers. The pandemic had a seismic impact on educators in Australia and New Zealand, with a 2022 Monash University study finding that teachers’ satisfaction with their roles dropped from 66% in 2019 (pre-COVID) to 46% in 2022.

The same report found that one in four teachers don’t feel safe at work, less than 14% report that their workload is manageable, and only three in ten plan on staying in the profession.

A high workload and poor work-life balance are key drivers of the current teacher exodus. And, with the number of teachers burning out and leaving the profession growing, this places even more pressure on the teachers who remain.

While there’s no magic cure for burnout, one of the best ways to combat it is to raise the profile of wellbeing at your school. Encouraging teachers to invest in their wellbeing and letting them know that it’s okay to admit they’re struggling or need support is increasingly as important as allocating time for lesson planning or report writing.

Here are some ways your school can promote and prioritise teacher wellbeing.

With technology allowing us to work anytime, anywhere, many teachers feel they can never entirely switch off. Chances are the teachers at your school are responding to emails, lesson planning, and assessing student work into the evening.

Let staff and families know that work-life balance is a priority at your school, and give educators permission to disconnect during their time off. Set schoolwide expectations that emails sent after a certain time don’t have to be answered until the next day – and ensure families are aware that after-hours emails won’t be dealt with immediately.

A common source of stress caused by the teacher shortage is educators regularly being asked to do things they’re not trained to do. Teachers are increasingly expected to take on roles they have no experience in, often with limited support.

Ensure your school is setting educators up for success by investing in professional development and coaching to help them take on new responsibilities with confidence. Whether they need support with new technology or mentoring to deal with specific learning difficulties more effectively, championing a continuous learning mindset at your school will drive teacher satisfaction and improve learning outcomes.

In addition to professional development opportunities, schools should also take advantage of technology that streamlines administrative tasks for teachers. For example, a school management system should have features that automate regular and repeatable activities. Things like taking attendance, recording assessments, and communicating with families should be simple to manage in one secure platform, enabling teachers to focus on learning delivery and student wellbeing.

New teachers are especially susceptible to stress and burnout, especially those who began their teaching careers during the pandemic – one of the most chaotic periods in the history of education.

Take a structured and thorough approach to onboarding your school’s new teachers, prioritising wellbeing. Build regular formal and informal check-ins with new starters into your school’s wellbeing plan and connect them with mentor teachers who have the knowledge, experience, and personal attributes to build rewarding relationships with new educators.

Recognition is a crucial driver of employee engagement and satisfaction across all sectors. Everyone wants to be celebrated for a job well done, whether it’s via a shoutout in a meeting or something more formal.

Make awarding teachers with small tokens of gratitude something your school leadership team does regularly and encourage teachers to recognise their peers in the same way. Be specific about why you’re acknowledging them and remind them that you know they’re doing work worth being celebrated every day.