Aspire Saves 10 Work Days a Month with Helios
Aspire Public Schools (Aspire) has almost 20,000 students in its K-12 programs, spread across 40 community-based public charter schools in three California regions (Los Angeles Area, the Bay Area, and the Central Valley) and Tennessee region (Memphis). It has over 2,500 employees.
In Brief
Aspire had a manual process, using a number of spreadsheets, emails, a home-grown system, and paper files for managing their teacher’s credentials and induction programs. There were only two credentialing staff members, one in California and one in Tennessee.
Aspire began to have issues with compliance reporting for oversight visits and needed to rectify it immediately. After looking at many solutions, it was clear to Aspire that Helios, having K-12 experts on their team, had really mastered in assisting schools with managing credentials and induction programs. Helios also had many components and modules that Aspire could leverage in future.
Challenge
Aspire began to grow exponentially, the manual and paper-based process became untenable and the infrastructure could not keep pace. As Aspire brought on new schools into their network, their HR employees became overwhelmed. The tracking of credentials, permits, and where teachers were in their induction programs could not sustain the growth of Aspire.
Aspire is always focused on complying with the teacher credentialing requirements of their authorizers and was searching for better ways to ensure that compliance. Aspire needed a solution and looked to Helios to solve it.
The Helios Solution for Aspire
Helios streamlined Aspire’s credential management, induction programs, compliance reporting, and helped them go paperless. Aspire has staff that is geographically dispersed. Implementing Helios allowed employees to get the data they needed instantaneously, no matter where they were located. Helios’ electronic filing system helped reduce the amount of paper storage and eliminated duplicated documents that were on servers and employees’ emails.
Helios worked with Aspire’s team to create a seamless integration of credentials, induction program monitoring, compliance reporting, and integration into their data warehouse. Helios was able to streamline the entire credentialing process starting from credential updates to sending automated reminders and ensuring teachers are teaching the right courses in compliance with their credentials. With built-in assignment monitoring, the credentialing team can catch red flags if teachers are mis-assigned. “We have found Helios is much more flexible and adaptable to our needs, rather than Aspire Schools having to change practices or procedures in order to fit Helios”, said Cameron Byrd.
Thanks to Helios, the staff who deal with teacher credentials and induction programs (Cameron’s staff, principals, HR, talent and recruiting staff), are saving 10+ workdays a month. Another benefit is their efficiency in compliance reporting for their authorizers. For their annual visits, which included listing out a master schedule, matching teacher compliance to the schedule, Cameron has been able to use built-in Helios reports and create his own reports, which has enabled him to streamline his process and make it more efficient. “There was nobody else out there who could help us manage our credentials and induction programs. We really did not find any competition for Helios”, said Cameron Byrd.
Cameron has a lot of satisfaction and confidence in knowing his team has the data they need to make sure they have the best teachers in the classroom. With Helios he knows he can help those teachers walk through their professional journey.
“Prior to implementing Helios our credential management, induction program tracking, and file storage were untenable. Helios helped us automate our processes, eliminate paper file storage, and eliminate our paper-based system. With Helios, we are saving 10+ workdays a month. We are pleased with our partnership with Helios. They truly are looking out for our best interest.” said Cameron Byrd, Director, Credential Services and Retirement Departments, and Induction Program Manager at Aspire Public Schools.