Kyrene School District is one of Arizona’s leading public school districts, providing excellence in education for over 135 years. But like many K-12 school districts with deep roots, many administrative processes haven't changed in decades and are still dominated by paper, manual routing, and limited visibility.
Kyrene is in the early stages of its Softdocs rollout, beginning with a small set of high-impact HR forms.
The district’s vision extends far beyond HR, aiming for a future where critical processes like the state-mandated 45-day student screener—an assessment required for every new student within their first 45 days of school to identify potential hearing, vision, behavioral, or learning concerns—along with dozens of other high-volume, high-visibility workflows, are fully automated, tracked, and accessible in one familiar platform.
The first steps are already proving what’s possible.
Challenges: Managing High-Volume Workflows on Paper
Most forms, whether for new student screenings, teacher absences, or internal HR workflows, are still handled manually. Staff download a PDF from a local drive, print it, fill it out by hand, and send it via district mail or email. Once completed, the forms have to be scanned and uploaded into Synergy, the district’s student information system (SIS), or manually routed through multiple departments.
This approach surfaces familiar pain points for many districts:
- Time-consuming manual workflows across departments.
- No centralized visibility or tracking, leading to delays or missed steps.
- Data entry inconsistencies, such as missing employee ID numbers.
- Limited audit trails, making compliance tracking more difficult.
Why Softdocs: Built for K-12 Education, Ready for Scale
Kyrene School District set out to find a platform that could automate and standardize district workflows, reduce paper dependencies, and simplify compliance. The district selected the Softdocs Platform for its flexibility, education-first design, and proven success in K-12 environments.
While the long-term goal includes digitizing the complex state-mandated 45-day screener, the district chose to begin with high-impact HR and absence forms—simpler workflows that could be implemented quickly and deliver immediate results.
This approach allowed staff to see early wins, gain hands-on experience with the platform, and build momentum for larger, more complex projects to follow.
Softdocs now powers:
- Multiple absence forms, including bereavement and blackout day requests.
- Dynamic form autofill, reducing data errors by pulling user-specific info (e.g., employee ID) upon login.
- Automated routing, removing reliance on email or manual handoffs.
- Workflow tracking and notifications, allowing staff to view the status of their submission in real time
- Audit trails, providing clarity for compliance and reporting needs.
- PDF export in official state format, supporting document upload into the SIS.
With the Softdocs Platform, the K-12 district reduced the time it takes to complete a form from up to an hour to just a few minutes, significantly improving both staff satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Early Results and Expanding Impact
Since launch, the district has digitized multiple forms within the HR department, each tailored to different staff roles—certified employees, support staff, and administrators.
The workflows already live are delivering clear benefits for staff:
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Reduced manual routing and lost forms: No more chasing paperwork through emails or district mail.
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Faster processing time: What once took up to an hour now takes only minutes.
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Built-in tracking and notifications: Staff always know the status of their form submission.
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Cleaner compliance and audit trails: Simplifying reporting and reviews.
As demand grows, the district is building internal expertise to scale securely.
Powering Strategic Insight with Power BI
A unique part of Kyrene’s digital strategy is its integration with Power BI via Softdocs’ replicated database. As a data-driven district, Kyrene uses Power BI for nearly all analytics and reporting.
By connecting Softdocs form data to Power BI, district leaders plan to analyze:
- Trends in 45-day screener outcomes, such as vision or hearing concerns.
- Absence patterns by type or time of year, helping inform staffing decisions.
- Form submission volumes and workflow performance metrics.
Future Expansion and Long-Term Vision
While Kyrene’s rollout began with a focused set of HR forms, the district's vision for the Softdocs Platform has quickly evolved into something much larger and more transformative.
The 45-day screener is a prime example of the opportunity ahead. Within the first 45 days of school, every new student must be screened for hearing, vision, behavioral, or learning concerns. In a single kindergarten class, that can mean 25 individual paper forms—each requiring manual review and routing to administrators for potential follow-up. By bringing this process into Softdocs, Kyrene sees the potential to eliminate paper, improve tracking, and give staff faster access to the data they need.
As each new workflow goes live, word spreads organically across departments. Leaders in finance, student services, governance, and community education are now lining up to get their own processes into the system.
Departments are proactively identifying forms to digitize, including:
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HR and employee services: notice of intent for degree-related pay adjustments, memorandums of understanding, confidentiality agreements, and district-wide policy forms (grievances and complaints)
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Finance and business operations: direct deposit forms, travel reimbursement requests, and other finance-related workflows
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Student and community services: parental consent forms, state-mandated English Language Learner (ELL) assessments, free and reduced lunch waivers, and facilities usage forms for community education
Even forms previously managed in legacy tools are being considered for migration to Softdocs for better centralization and document control.
To manage demand, the team is building internal capacity, learning to handle more advanced form types like parent-facing broadcasts and interdepartmental agreements. “We’re getting more training so we can start cranking them out for all these different departments,” said Belding.
Building a Softdocs District
The ultimate goal for Kyrene? To make Softdocs the foundation of a unified, district-wide process strategy.
From the start, Kyrene felt supported in turning that vision into reality. Belding describes the Softdocs implementation as smooth and well-organized, with no surprises.
By digitizing the data that once sat in drawers or inboxes, Kyrene is empowering staff at every level, from classroom teachers to district leadership, with the information they need to work more efficiently and serve students better. With more departments asking, “Can we use Softdocs for that too?” the vision of a fully connected, paperless district is closer than ever.
For Kyrene, the progress so far is only the first step. The foundation is in place, the momentum is building, and the vision is clear: this is just the beginning.
