As part of our continuing fireside chat series, we interviewed Wanda Ezell, Learning Coach of On Track School in Menifee, CA. An online business-learning program for middle and high school, the On Track School has 57 students. They have been using QuickSchools since December 2012. In the interview, Wanda shares how the On Track team discovered QuickSchools to be the right student information system for their online school.
Before using QuickSchools, the On Track School kept records in numerous places, which often lead to confusion. “The school’s previous system was structured more for the individual teacher rather than the group as a whole, making it difficult to compile information.”
At the time the school researched online management systems, they were looking into their accreditation and needed a way to compile all of their records and pull reports, which caused them to look for a new tool.
Wanda Ezell’s advice for schools that are reviewing online management tools would be to “think about the needs of your school and what you want to achieve by purchasing a system and be sure that the tool you’re considering meets those needs.” Working with QuickSchools has been a great experience for Wanda Ezell and the On Track School.
The staff and teachers have been using QuickSchools proficiently. The school asked for a few improvements to reports and some enhancements to the discipline area, which were just released. The On Track School has been “constantly growing and is always adding to their ability to provide better records to their accreditation team as well as parents.” Wanda Ezell has been put in charge of QuickSchools and her job has become much easier. “Everything looks neat and organized and she’s able to get it out to students and parents in that manner and that’s been a really great experience.”
The On Track School does not currently use the parent and student portal feature of QuickSchools. However, the school is looking at implementing the parent portal possibly next year. The school wanted to make sure all teachers were on board and everything was working before implementing more features. Wanda’s favorite QuickSchools feature is the disciplinary action portal where teachers can add notes about students and everyone is aware of potential problems. Another favorite feature is the transcripts, since grades are automatically entered that makes it easy to compile as requests are received.
For Wanda Ezell, QuickSchools has been a “real blessing” and is helping the On Track School stay organized.
Finally, the On Track School recently started to use the administrative portion of QuickSchools.
“They have really enjoyed the registration process and getting that set up. The school is hoping to start using fee tracking and some of the other features that go along with that. It’s just a great program all around.”
Prior to using QuickSchools, the school was using a paper-based registration process and now they just provide a link to QuickSchools.
Thank you to Wanda Ezell for participating in our fireside chat.