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- Manager oversight app for After school programs
An After School Manager App for Sites, Staffing and Daily Pickups
A program director may run several sites, each with its own dismissal rush, staffing rota and waitlist, and the day's problems often surface at the gate. SIZ Group builds an after school manager app that shows coverage, headcounts and open requests for every site in one view.
01
How a multi-site afternoon runs today, and where it breaks
A program with several sites runs each afternoon on its own schedule. Every site has a dismissal rush, a staff rota and a waitlist, and the director usually learns about a problem when a site leader calls from the gate. The director's view is often a set of phone calls and a spreadsheet from the day before.
The breaks cluster at the edges of the day. A site opens short-staffed because a leader called in sick, a pickup change never reaches the site that needs it, and a headcount is reported complete before the last group has come through. Each one is small, and together they create the calls that pull the director away from planning.
The director also loses time reconciling numbers. The enrollment total on one site's report does not match the total on the district form, and nobody knows which figure is current until month end.
02
What the general manager should see before signing off on the after school manager app
The general manager signs off when the morning view shows the same staffing and headcount that site leaders see at dismissal, for every site. We test that against a real week of rotas and attendance before launch, so the team can check the numbers line by line.
The manager also needs to trust the warnings. A flag for a short-staffed site should appear before the afternoon starts, and an open pickup request should show how long it has waited. If a warning arrives after the rush, the rule behind it is corrected before the app goes live.
- Staffing gaps flagged for each site before the afternoon starts
- Headcounts match what site leaders recorded at dismissal
- Open pickup requests shown with how long each has waited
- Enrollment totals per site match the district form for the same date
03
One director's Tuesday, step by step in the manager app
The director opens the app at eight and sees three sites with open flags. One site has a leader out sick, another has a pickup request from a family whose named adult is not yet approved, and the third has a headcount well below its enrollment list.
She assigns a float leader to the first site from the list of available staff. The app warns that the float leader is already booked for the early shift at another site, so she picks a second candidate. Once she confirms, the rota for both sites updates and the site leader receives the change.
Before lunch she reviews the pickup request. The adult's name is not on the signed authorization form, so she asks the office to collect the signed form. The request stays open with a note, and the status is visible to the site leader before dismissal.
What you get
Key features
Staffing gap alerts
Short-staffed sites flagged before the afternoon starts, with suggested cover.
Pickup request queue
Requests shown with their age and the approval status of the adult named.
Enrollment totals
Enrolled children per site, matched to the district form for the same date.
Calendar overlay
Early release days and closures applied to every site at once.
Role-based access
Directors see all sites, site leads see their own, and finance sees totals only.
04
The data and access an after school program has to supply
The program supplies the structure: site hours, staff rotas and roles, the enrollment list for each site, the early release and closure calendar from the district, and the list of approved pickup adults. Without those, the morning view cannot show a number the director can trust.
Access should follow the role. The general manager sees every site, site leaders see their own site, and the finance contact sees fee totals without any child details. Each role is confirmed in writing during scoping, and every view of a child record is logged.
05
Mistakes to avoid when the program moves to one manager view
The most common mistake is building a multi-site dashboard before the site views work. A director who sees attractive charts but cannot confirm one site's headcount will go back to the phone. Start with each site's list and roll the totals up afterwards.
Second, do not let each site keep its own spreadsheet of children. Two versions of the enrollment list create the mismatch the director is trying to remove, and the first busy afternoon will expose it.
Third, avoid mixing totals from different dates. The morning view should label the date and the time of its last update, so the director knows whether a count is from before or after the early release.
- Site lists first, roll-up totals second
- One enrollment list per site, read from the school system
- Every total labeled with its date and last update time
06
Rolling out the morning view to site leads who are busy at dismissal
Site leads will not stop working at the gate to check a screen. The director should use the morning view for two weeks alongside the current calls and spreadsheets, and the team should see the numbers agree before the calls stop.
After that, the morning view becomes the start of the director's day, and site leads get a short check in the afternoon. We review the early misses with the team and adjust the flags, so the warnings arrive in time to act on.
How much does an after school manager app cost?+
Mobile apps start at $4,500. The price depends on the number of sites, the school systems the app reads from and the roles the director needs to see. The free scoping call maps those details, and the scope and price are confirmed in writing before any build begins.
Can the app show problems across all our sites at once?+
Yes. The morning view lists every site with its flags, sorted so the most urgent problem sits at the top. The director can open any site for detail, and each site leader sees only that site.
Does the app replace our district reporting?+
No. The district still receives its official forms. The manager app keeps the figures that feed those forms accurate, so the numbers match before anything is submitted.
Who can see individual children's records?+
Only the people whose role requires it, such as the site leader for their own site. Finance contacts see totals without child details. Every view of a child record is logged with the name and the time.
What happens after the after school manager app goes live?+
Post-launch support covers fixes, report corrections and questions from directors through the first school year. New sites and extra reports are scoped separately and priced in writing before work begins.
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Let's make it happen
See every site's afternoon in one view
Book a free scoping call and we will map your sites, rotas and enrollment lists into a written scope and price.