Geneva schools automating purchases
Sep. 20—GENEVA — The Geneva Area City Schools Board voted to automate district purchases at a meeting Wednesday evening.
Currently, when a Geneva school requests to purchase supplies or other materials, it needs to go through paper.
Strategic Solutions, a communication company, will integrate the automation with Ohio's Uniform School Accounts System, and set up an index of purchase records.
District Treasurer Shelly McDermott said the current request system uses more time and money.
"You can be responsible for your own [purchase order] you're putting in," she said. "Once it's approved, the requisition, which is turned into a purchase order, can go straight out to the vendor."
Integration and training for the changes will be done by January 2025.
The board also voted to hire Frontline Education to make the district's employment records and budget more electronic.
Interim Superintendent David Riley said the employment changes work better for tracking personnel records.
"It would also free up some time in terms of communicating out all these documents and sheets and sending them out," he said.
McDermott said the changes will allow the district to understandably forecast its budget.
"Looking at the past forecast, there's a lot of words. There's a lot of reading," she said. "This [program] will outline in graphs, and there's just small blurbs of changes of what's affecting the forecast."
McDermott said electronic integration will also be done by January 2025.
Riley presented the district's evaluation in the Ohio School Report Cards. When talking about the district's two-star early literacy rating, Riley said the pandemic's effects are a factor, and Ohio's Science of Reading Program should help.
Board Member Michele Krieg said she wants more done to improve early literacy than what Ohio is is offering.
"I am heartbroken because we are not addressing the foundation and that is the problem," she said. "The problem is the foundation is not being built. I hear what you're saying. I know there's new things coming down the pipe, but you cannot build a house and start with the roof. Our K-3 teachers need curriculum and they needed it two years ago."
Krieg said she has been advocating improving early literacy for years.
"We have got to get some staff in the classroom," she said. "We have got to get these class sizes down. That is where the meat and potatoes of this problem is."
