New and improved functionality across all solution sets helps school leaders address labor shortages, pandemic recovery and other market conditions
Malvern, PA, Aug. 4, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Frontline Education, a leading provider of administration software built specifically for elementary and middle school educators, today announced a host of new and enhanced product functionality across its broad portfolio of connected solutions for human capital management, student and special programs, operations and analytics. Product enhancements launched in the first and second quarters of 2022 were conceived and designed to support K-12 leaders in navigating current market conditions, such as recruiting and retaining teachers amid labor shortages, retaining health and well-being of students and staff and responding to market needs for comprehensive, integrated technology solutions that drive efficiency.
“We have an unwavering commitment to the scope and scale of opportunities facing school districts to meet the ever-expanding technology needs of K-12 education,” said Kevin Haugh, Frontline Chief Product Officer. “Through technical innovation and with the know-how to address even the largest administrative need, the product updates we implemented in the first half of this year deliver greater value to K-12 leaders by continuing to improve efficiency, increase productivity increase and optimize performance so that clients can focus on learning outcomes. As school leaders prepare for the busy back-to-school season, our goal with these enhanced capabilities is to support districts in their desire to ensure operational excellence.”
Product features first half 2022
Tackling the labor shortage with the best technology
Frontline’s Human Capital Management (HCM) solution helps school districts attract, engage, grow, and retain great people while empowering the employee journey—a critical, strategic need because K-12 education is a labor shortage that is attributed to retirements, layoffs and fewer candidates entering the field. The Mobile app for primary care absence, which allows administrators and employees to quickly and easily manage absences and time at work while on the go, recently launched enhanced functionality and is now available to replace teachers for free. Substitutes can now view, filter and accept jobs via their mobile device once absences have been entered, increasing the rate at which absences are filled and increasing overall occupancy to maintain apprenticeship time. Districts using the mobile app see fill rates that are on average 13% higher than districts with lower mobile adoption. Incredibly popular on the App Store with a rating of over 4.5 stars, the Absence Mobile App was used to fill nearly three million open positions in the 2021-2022 school year.
“In the current K-12 climate, it almost seems like no one is immune to the teacher shortage crisis, making filling absentee teacher positions with qualified replacements vital,” said Liza McGarity, Assistant Superintendent at Fort Mill School District in South Carolina. “We’ve been working with Frontline Education for nearly a decade and with substitutes now having access to the Absence Mobile App, it’s a game changer for our district. The app has become the top-performing platform, filling more than 7,000 vacancies this year, achieving a fill rate of 85%.”
Selected as a finalist by the prestigious SIIA CODiE Awards program, Frontline’s HCM suite also helps school leaders retain the quality workforce they already have using professional growth solutions that enable districts to track and manage the best professional learning programs. The recently launched and award-winning My growth journey functionality provides a comprehensive overview of teachers’ professional growth, including professional development activities and assessment insights to enable a holistic view of their personal journey. a new Learning designer ability enables organizations to create robust course content that proactively supports ongoing professional learning and underscores the school’s commitment to providing learning opportunities and clear career paths for employees. Also under Frontline Professional Growth, a new Update Evaluation Cycle Tool Within the Employee Evaluation Management product, school leaders will be able to upload evaluations in bulk, saving time and reducing human error.
Preserving the health and well-being of students and staff
The mental and physical well-being of students and staff has become more important than ever, creating a need for better technology and tracking. New features to Primary health management in school—supporting a district health office and providing access to the most robust electronic health record solution on the market – now offers the ability to streamline scheduling for individual and group counseling sessions. There are also new ones Workflow and data validation improvements to School Health Management, which makes workflows faster and easier for school leaders and end users, saving administrative time and allowing them to do what they care about most: supporting students. In addition, Frontline continues to expand pandemic response and user-centric features related to COVID-19 health checks, test results, vaccine status, and quarantine management, ensuring import and accuracy. All of these features put student needs first and help school leaders identify and respond to emerging trends and critical programs such as Manual with care, while keeping districts compliant and schools safe.
Increasing adoption of educational technology devices
The pandemic has drawn attention to the need for technology that supports distance learning, as evidenced by a continued increase in student-issued devices over the past 24 months. Frontline’s Inventory Management solutions enable administrators to learn about the assets a district has, where they are located and what money they were bought with.
New improvements to Frontline’s Inventory and Help Desk Management will help school leaders accurately and effectively manage the device distribution process. New integration with Google allows administrators to easily turn Chromebooks on or off automatically and also includes the ability to unlink an item tag from an incorrect purchase order. Additionally, Frontline has made improvements to the overall mobile experience. Of Mobile Collecting for Wealth Managementusers can now make site-to-site asset transfers and add fees and payments during the collection process, all within the palm of their hand.
“Frontline’s Asset Management includes all of our inventory data and makes it easy to look up student, employee, and device details,” said Nicholas DePauw, director of information technology at Patterson Unified School District in California. “In a minute I can tell you exactly how many assets my district has and their total value.”
Strategic planning to better serve the next generation of students
Frontline Analytics empowers district leaders to harness the power of their data to make more informed decisions for the benefit of their students and communities. New automated features for Financial analytics significantly reduce manual entry and increase the speed to update new financial models for the new fiscal year. Improved role management functionality within Student Analytics Lab, a tool that helps schools bridge the digital divide and achieve equality, enabling school leaders to easily and efficiently manage user roles in a scalable way.
In the second half of the year, Frontline will build on the momentum and focus efforts on innovation that streamlines integration and improves usage and engagement with its industry-leading software solutions. Read more about Frontline Education and its portfolio here.
####
About Frontline
Frontline Education is a leading provider of school administration software, connecting student and specialty programs, business operations, and human capital management solutions with powerful analytics to empower educators. Frontline partners with school systems to deliver tools, data, and insights that support greater efficiency and productivity, allowing school leaders to spend more time and resources executing strategies that drive teacher effectiveness, student success, and district excellence .
Frontline’s broad portfolio includes solutions for proactive hiring and hiring, absence and time management, professional growth, student information systems, special education, special programs, Medicaid reimbursements, school health management, inventory and asset management, payroll, benefits and financial management, and analytics solutions that help district leaders tap into their data to make more informed decisions for the benefit of their students and communities. More than 10,000 customers representing millions of educators, administrators, and support staff partner with Frontline Education in their efforts to develop the next generation of learners.
CONTACT: Natalie Kay Frontline Education 2158504643 nkay@frontlineed.com
