Here is what we’ve been up to, and where we’re going.
In 2018, we worked with our key Beta users to fine-tune the features and workflow needed to make running an after-school enrichment program reasonably easy, and we’ll keep chipping away at the process until we’ve made running an enrichment program as streamlined as possible.
I would like to offer a special Thank You to our Beta schools that gave us feedback.
Key introductions from 2018
- We introduced a new on-boarding wizard to significantly simplify configuration.
- We introduced a way to self-schedule one-on-one video sessions with School Twist staff – making it more personable to get a demo or to receive concierge support.
- We introduced a facelift for the registrants.
- We introduced our a speedup that made our site five times faster.
- We introduced standard Excel reports.
- We introduced a linking functionality so we could quickly see which other classes the student was taking.
- We introduced at-a-glance financial-aid status.
- We started offering logins for instructors so they could see their classes, dates, rosters, and school details, such as parking policies and entry procedures.
Things that really excited us
- We passed our $1M mark in processed tuition fees – wow!
- We came out of Beta (like, this week)!
Big things to expect in 2019
- Further User-Interface refinements on the admin-operations screens.
- A subscription option for enrichment programs, as an alternative to per-transaction charges. This would let you deposit 100% of tuition while skipping merchant fees and the School Twist fee.
- Tracking the dates of the season to further streamline the class setup process.
- Automated advancing of classes on certain dates, such unattended opening for registration.
- Email summaries of activities, such as the number of registrants in a day.
- Automated communication with parents before key milestones, such as a reminder about classes starting the next week.
Community and best practice sharing
We think that there is the potential to bring the enrichment community together through the School Twist platform. While building School Twist over the years, we’ve definitely noticed that each enrichment program tends to operate in a vacuum. We’ve seen the volunteers running the programs clamoring to learn about how we’ve seen other schools operate – to hear about what worked for them, and what didn’t. We’ll try our best to bring this information to you.
To help support the Enrichment community, we plan to
- Survey users (and share the results)
- Conduct interviews with enrichment operators
- Create a compendium of best practices, lessons learned, and maybe even highlighting humorous stories about the ups and downs of running enrichment programs
Thanks for a great 2018, and we look forward to working with you in 2019.
JJ & the School Twist Team
PS – Please contact us if:
- You have a good enrichment story to share. Aka: “I learned about running an enrichment program from that…”
- You would like us to contact you
- You have a suggestion for us…
- Well, just about anything else, too.
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