From left are Assistant Director of Special Services Tina Northern and Steve Ferber, director of WCS’s Gateway Education Center

WARSAW — Employees of Warsaw Community Schools may soon be experiencing fewer issues when clocking in and out for work. The school corporation’s chief technology officer told the Board of School Trustees at its monthly work session on Tuesday, Oct. 16, that a computer program by a company called Kronos would be getting an overhaul, if the move is approved by the board.

“We’ve had some bumps in the road with it because really, the platform that we were using was built more for corporate culture and so the complexity was high and it wasn’t a really great fit in our environment,” said Brad Hagg.

Hagg told the board that the school corporation had been in the midst of a five-year contract. “So, we were really at a stage where we were brainstorming on how we cope with this,” Hagg continued. “How do we mitigate the situation we find ourselves in? As we reached out to the company, we found out that just this year, they came out with a new platform just for education. And, the greatest thing about that is that it cuts the cost dramatically, and it also cuts the complexity.”

Hagg said he expected a transition to the company’s new program to be relatively seamless.

“So, it’s a win-win for us and it kind of lets us do a re-deployment and go through a brand new roll-out phase, where we can really set it up from scratch and kind of correct some of the things that we realized weren’t set up properly to start with. And, it will let us keep the parts of the implementation that we liked. Users were really struggling, especially those who don’t have real computer and technology skills.”

In other business, Steve Ferber, director of WCS’s Gateway Education Center gave a presentation on adult education.

Ferber told the board that state education officials have been asking for more data and accountability regarding adult education. He said the program now features a point system issued to the administering entities.

“We earn points, based on four means with each adult education student,” Ferber said. Ferber added that points are awarded if the student receives a high school diploma equivalency or if they’re employed or if they earn a certification in a job skill or improve their skill level.

The board also:

• Heard an update on WCS’s school bus replacement program. Transportation Director Mark Fick told the board that the school district can receive government incentives for scrapping certain existing school busses which don’t meet governmental emission standards.
• Heard an update on the progress of a land purchase near Claypool Elementary School.
• Received an update from Chief Academic Officer Dr. David Robertson on a Title II grant of $163,665.16 and also a presentation on the success of the recent Back To The Days event held at Harrison Elementary School.
• Received a High Ability update from Assistant Director of Special Services Tina Northern.