Overview
Parkview Baptist School is a K-12 independent school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They have over 1,300 students and are in their 37th year of operation. As the largest private school in the state of Louisiana, Parkview has a mission to offer enriching, rigorous programs to suit every student’s interests. From the arts, to athletics, to academics, Parkview Baptist School epitomizes the thriving, community-oriented private school.
What Did They Need?
The biggest thing we kept in mind when looking for an SIS at our former school was that we knew we had to get teacher buy- in,” said Courtney Haindel, Director of Marketing and Enrollment. “If teachers don’t like an SIS, it’s an uphill battle.
Our Solution
After selecting RenWeb at her previous school, Haindel transitioned to Parkview already confident in our product. “RenWeb is easy to use, user-friendly, and more teacher-centric than any other product I’ve seen in the market.”
“I remember thinking vividly that RenWeb was such a good fit for our school.”
Why They’re Staying with RenWeb and FACTS
Haindel became a life-long RenWeb fan primarily because of the company culture that RenWeb exuded to her in various stages of the selling, implementation, and training process.
Other SIS companies have a very corporate feel,” she said. “Education or teacher-related products may only be a small part of their overall operation, and that’s obvious when you’re speaking to a sales person or a project manager. They just don’t know what needs to happen for a school to run. And RenWeb did.
The implementation process is the most tenuous stage of school adoption, especially in a large, complicated school setup process.
“It was terrifying at first. But our implementation experience with RenWeb was totally painless,” said Haindel. “Our implementation specialist came from a K-12 background and that was very comforting. She looked at our onboarding from a teacher or educator’s perspective, rather than from a corporate one.”
For a large, modern school, online admissions products are make-or-break for them. In today’s technology-centric culture, the expectation for and convenience of an online admissions process is imperative to a school’s operations.
I can’t fathom why any school still uses paper applications,” said Haindel. “I can’t believe it when I see it. It just doesn’t make sense anymore.
Haindel uses RenWeb’s Online Application and Enrollment at Parkview Baptist to ensure a smooth admissions process for incoming and returning students.
“It was night and day when we moved from a paper application and re-enrollment to an online process. Online Application and Enrollment are my favorite products. They’re incredibly intuitive and can be customized to my exact specifications,” said Haindel.
To help bolster the school’s existing RenWeb practices, Parkview sends a contingent of faculty and staff to RenWeb’s Power Conference each year.
“I think the Power Conference is fantastic,” said Haindel. “When I went for the second time a few years ago, my husband said, ‘Well, don’t you know everything you need to know about RenWeb?’ And I said, first of all, they’re always coming out with new products. And second, I appreciate all the value-added trainings and seminars that go beyond the technical RenWeb training sessions.”
We have always used FACTS for our financial aid applications because of the ease of use and the fact that it is super self-explanatory when parents are going through the process.
In order to streamline the billing process for the school, they are moving to using FACTS’ services entirely for both tuition management and grant/aid assessment.
“We’re doing it for the same reason we used FACTS originally for their Grant and Aid product – greater ease of use for our parents, the convenience of online automatic payment, and the ability for parents to access their account at any time. FACTS’ customer service and training is second to none and they’ve made the transition pretty seamless,” said Haindel.
As Parkview moves forward with RenWeb and FACTS, Haindel is confident about the partnership between RenWeb and their school.
Download PDFWe are so invested in RenWeb. Our parents love it. Our teachers embrace it. I can’t imagine a reason we’d want to look elsewhere.