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Case Study

A Growing District Finds a Better Way to Track Time

How Clear Creek Amana Community School District saves time running payroll and ensures greater accuracy, even when staff has nearly doubled.

Clear Creek Amana Community School District Hero Image

District Background

  • Location

    Oxford, Iowa

  • PreK-12 Enrollment

    3,124

  • Teachers and Staff

    600+

  • Product & Solutions

    Time and Attendance

A Growing District

If you’re an employee at Clear Creek Amana Community School District (CCA), Melissa Potter is the person who makes sure you get paid. One of the fastest-growing districts in Iowa, CCA serves a little more than 3,000 students, and expects to grow by 150-200 each year over the next 5 years. Adding that many new students means adding staff as well. “We’ve more than doubled the amount of people,” Melissa says, adding that CCA now has just over 600 employees.

In her entire time in the district, Melissa has never missed a payroll, and she’ll be the first to tell you how challenging it was when the district used paper timesheets. “It was just lots and lots of paper to keep track of,” Melissa remembers. “And if somebody’s timesheet got lost, that was a whole ‘nother issue.”

A Simpler Payroll Process with Frontline

CCA began using Frontline solutions in 2013 when they chose Absence Management to track leave and place substitute teachers. “A couple years later, we added on the timeclock part of it [Time and Attendance] and did away with paper timesheets. So that’s been a huge time saver.” Melissa says the district chose Frontline because they knew it would interface with their payroll software.

Now, most employees clock in and out using a mobile app on their phones. Supervisors and administrators review each employee’s time to make sure it’s correct and are required to approve submitted time by a certain day each week. Melissa then downloads the reports from Frontline and makes sure there are no glaring errors. She also downloads the leave reports from Absence Management, and uploads leave and time into their payroll system.

Melissa Potter Photo

“I love that it puts their absence hours onto their time sheets. I don’t have to keep track of that separately and make sure that they’re getting paid for that time that they should be paid, for those paid absences.”

Melissa Potter
– Payroll Specialist

Now, Melissa says, they’ve moved almost entirely away from paper timesheets.

Less Time, More Accuracy

With the way the district’s employee base has grown, Melissa is relieved that she has a software system to track their time. “I just can’t imagine how long it would take me now if we were still with paper timesheets with 600 employees to process.” And because the district recently began paying classified employees twice a month, the time-savings is even more important.

Payroll is one process for which accuracy is absolutely critical. Melissa says that having software to calculate time worked not only saves time, it reduces the chance of human error. “This is way more accurate than me doing it by hand.” The ability to factor in paid leave with the connection to Absence Management is another big plus, adding that she uses substitute reports to ensure they get paid for days worked.

“It saves a lot of paper and saves a lot of time and helps with accuracy, that’s for sure.”


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About Frontline Education

Frontline Education is a leading provider of school administration software, connecting solutions for student and special programs, business operations and human capital management with powerful analytics to empower educators. Frontline partners with school systems to deliver tools, data and insights that support greater efficiency and productivity, enabling school leaders to spend more time and resources executing strategies that drive educator effectiveness, student success and district excellence.

Frontline’s broad portfolio includes solutions for proactive recruiting and hiring, absence and time management, professional growth, student information systems, special education, special programs, Medicaid reimbursement, school health management, inventory control 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. Over 10,000 clients representing millions of educators, administrators and support personnel have partnered with Frontline Education in their efforts to develop the next generation of learners.