GRANTS, N.M. - According to Superintendent Max Perez, the change in Grants Cibola County Schools moving towards paperless notifications and cashless transactions has been a steady process. The schools made a transition from PowerSchool, the old student information system used across the state, to a new student information program called Synergy. If a parent wishes to log on and get connected, the program allows them access to all of their kids grades and test scores without having to receive it on paper. Perez said that many other districts in the state have also chosen to make the change to Synergy, and he suspects that more will follow. Some of the improved features he noted include it being user friendly, having more options for reports, and granting more access for parents. For parents who don’t have access to the internet, paper copies can still be requested from the school.
GCCS have also steadily gone cashless as a whole as well. It has started to be put into place for a few months now. Perez stated that this would minimize possible errors by eliminating the movement of cash from hand to hand. With this change, taking payments only electronically will be completely accurate and eliminate the possibility of misdoings. He did acknowledge that this would be a problem for community members who don’t have cell phones or a credit card. He continued and said that they don’t want to turn away anyone from community events, so they have challenged each school to come up with ways to handle the situations where people may fall into those categories. Perez said that this is currently a phase where the schools will present what works best for them individually to their finance director. This is due to concession stands in games also being cashless and each school will have varying levels of traffic as well. The finance director will look over their proposed methods, and if what the school gives is not acceptable, they will have to come up with something else. Perez said that it will be monitored and each school will have a fair way that it will be accessible to all community members possibly in the next few weeks.
According to Chief Financial Officer Steve Maldonado, each school principal has the option to put in some method for collecting cash except for at the event itself. No matter what the event is, if you intend to pay with cash you will have to pay for your ticket in advance. He gave the example of Grants High School’s method, where you can go to the secretary at the school site and buy your ticket there beforehand in cash. Maldonado stated that some schools in the district are doing really well with the transition ,while some others have yet to adopt it. He did stress that while some schools may not be as quick to adopt it, they do want to continue to drive towards the cashless system together. According to Grants High School’s Principal Lane Widner and Secretary Chanda Turley, as long as you have a smartphone and the app, the system works well. The district had training just for secretaries to prepare them for the new system. So far, going cashless has made things easier without having to handle cash at games anymore. With the new system in place the schools will have to turn away people who bring cash to the door of their events. The system of taking cash for tickets with the secretary during the school day has worked well up to this point though. The money they get still goes through the same system with a record of everything sold and can be deposited the same day at the bank. The school has also now implemented card readers that are used for entrance to events and concession stands in order to streamline the process. If anyone needs help with using the app to pay for entrance to an event, the secretaries at the schools are available to help explain the process.