Note: This transcript is automatically generated and has been reviewed, but it may contain errors.
Webinar Recording
[00:00:00] Emily: Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm Emily, and I'm part of the customer success team with Orah, in case we have not yet met. I'm really glad you're here because this is a little bit different than what we have been offering lately. It's different than your typical webinar. It's not a polished case study or a product demo.
What we're doing is sitting down with two attendance admins who have actually been through the process of moving into class attendance in Orah. We're asking them to tell you what the experience has really been like for them, the wins, the learning curves, and what a normal Tuesday looks like now that they're on the other side.
To do that, I've brought in two people who are members of schools that we work really closely with, and who've agreed to come and just be really honest with you today about what their experiences look like so far. We are, I believe, still waiting for one person to join us, so we'll get started without them, and when she comes I will very excitedly introduce her because she's someone that I've worked with quite closely for the last two years, and that's Nicole Jules from the University School of Nashville in Tennessee.
Nicole's been working through the full complexity of attendance at a multi-division school, managing different grade levels, coordinating pass types, getting teachers and deans on the same page, and she's going to share what that transition has looked like from an organizational standpoint and what she would maybe do differently if she were starting fresh.
I'm interested to hear that part. And then we also have Julie Katz, who is with Donna Klein Jewish Academy in Florida. Julie was the driving force behind bringing Orah in after her school outgrew SchoolPass. She's been running automated attendance for her middle school division, and that means students scanning in to classrooms to be marked present on classroom attendance, where their names appear on the screen in real time and they're marked present in real time.
[00:02:00] Grant: Sorry to cut you off, Emily. Hi everyone. I'm Grant, head of customer success at Orah. Nicole is here and joined us.
Emily: Oh yes, she was here and was here on time, but she wasn't added as a panelist. That's probably our mistake. Oh, sorry. Hi Nicole.
Nicole: Hello, and hi Grant.
Emily: And I will still introduce you, Grant, as well. Together, the hope really is to get a real picture of what things looked like before as the schools made this transition and how they're currently looking right now. So why don't we go ahead and get started. As I mentioned, I'm Emily. We have Grant on the call today as well, and I believe Alexis from the Orah team, and then Julie Katz and Nicole Jules.
I was hoping to start off with a quick introduction from each of you -- your name, your role, and maybe just one sentence about where you were with attendance before Orah. Julie, why don't we start with you?
[00:03:00] Julie: Hi. So I've been at Donna Klein Jewish Academy for almost twenty-seven years. We were using SchoolPass prior, and it was working well up until later on. There were a lot of login issues and inconsistencies, so we decided to pursue another app to use, and we ended up speaking to Orah. Orah didn't have everything we wanted, but I will say this year has been wonderful because everything we ask for, everything we try -- we want to help improve and bring new ideas -- it seems like Orah is listening to us and they want to make those improvements.
Everything has gone well for our first year with Orah. We're using the automated attendance with the scanning of student badges, and it has worked quite well for the 2025-26 school year.
Emily: That's so fantastic to hear. And Nicole, was it a similar picture at USN?
[00:04:00] Nicole: We were a little different. We had Blackbaud -- and this is no knock to Blackbaud, we're still using them -- but we had to run about five different reports to get the attendance information that we needed. As the semester went on, it was taking 10, 15, 20 additional hours just to get the information we needed based on our attendance policy.
Our former head of high school saw Orah at a conference back in 2019 and brought information back, and then we ended up saying, "Oh well, we'll wait." Then in a full circle moment, we came back around, and here we are with Orah, just finishing our second year. I have to second Julie on the fact that Orah has been so responsive. It feels like they're either already thinking about the thing that we're wishing for, or they're hearing us and finding little shortcuts and tweaks until they make a big change that ends up addressing the issue we've been finding.
[00:06:00] Emily: And I can say, having started with Orah shortly before USN came on board, just how quickly we have responded to the requests that have come in and the changes required as we've really got our footing in the class attendance space has been incredible to see. And there are lots of big things coming too, of course.
So if we think back to the onboarding phase -- your first weeks or months with Orah -- what surprised you the most? I mean that in both directions: good surprises, and maybe ones that took longer than you thought.
Julie: We're a Blackbaud school as well, and I think teachers just did not enjoy taking attendance through Blackbaud. They're finding having the Orah app so much easier. Also, if teachers are absent and there are substitutes, teachers really enjoy that they can take attendance for each other per grade level, and they found that quite easy to do.
The onboarding was seamless and easy. We just had a few login issues with the iPads in the beginning, but later in the year it's been working wonderfully. We have not had any issues with the iPad logins for students swiping. It started off great and it's ending great, and more to come.
[00:07:00] Nicole: I would have to second that. Having to log into Blackbaud every single time -- like if they stepped away and came back -- was a pain, which meant teachers weren't checking attendance when we would like them to. Having the extension in Google Chrome, because we are a Google school, has helped tremendously.
I'm also the assistant head of school for student affairs, so attendance falls under me, but our website manager did not want it. I work with him -- he hit the big button when we first started -- and our tech team helps me some, but I am the main Orah person in the building. I say that with my other role, and it is not taking up a ton of time. I have emailed Emily and within an hour had an answer, if not less, or found a tweak, or she's just gone in and fixed the thing I couldn't find. It's been awesome.
The rollout was very easy. I would say don't do what we did, which was roll it out as school was starting. The teachers were awesome, but there were definitely things we could not anticipate early on, though they were still fixed in the first couple of weeks. Back then we were mapping versus doing reasons, so it was tricky matching up what's considered an excused absence in one place versus what it was in Blackbaud and how they translated. That took us a little bit of time, but otherwise everything has been fairly easy and seamless.
[00:09:00] Emily: And that was such a welcome change in how we set up the system too -- just having that common thread of reasons throughout. For the schools that were on with us last year, having that common thread really streamlines the input into the SIS.
It sounds like there are some things you would have done differently as you started off, Nicole. Anything you would have done differently in that first 30 days, Julie?
Julie: I don't think so. The rollout was probably the easiest part. The integration speaks quite often, so there's really no downtime. It started off great and it's ending great.
Emily: And I know a lot of that is thanks to Soheb, who is great with onboarding our accounts. Now, you've both been on Orah for a school year -- Julie, one year, and Nicole, two years. What does the day-to-day actually look like now, and how has that changed? What would be your snapshot?
[00:11:00] Nicole: The insights were the biggest thing for me. Being able to quickly go to a student's profile -- for our kids, they try to say "Well, it says this in Blackbaud," but I'm like, "You know we take attendance in Orah. Here's what it says." Being able to show that percentage, saying "You've missed X percentage of classes. If this was a grade, what would your grade be?" -- it changes the whole conversation about a student with some of our frequent flyers. That has been a huge change for us.
It's added time back for sure. Knowing I can just go on the app, pull it up on my computer or iPad, look at what I need to see, and if a parent calls and I'm not at my desk, being able to answer those questions fairly quickly has been awesome. Teachers being able to access information in a more accurate way than it was showing up in Blackbaud has also been huge.
[00:12:00] Julie: One of the helpful tools for our assistant principal was the notifications he could send to teachers saying "You forgot to take attendance." The constant reminders have meant our attendance has been a lot better this year. One of the simple things I love is that the comments -- when teachers note that the child was sick or on vacation -- come back to Blackbaud. So when we get audited, I can just pull those reports and know exactly where that child was instead of tracking that teacher down in the summer. It's a little thing, but it's a big thing to me.
[00:13:00] Emily: Now, one thing you both have in common is that you're both schools that use kiosks -- the Checkpoint app in one way or another. I view the Checkpoint app as a way to make an Orah implementation even more robust than having teachers take attendance alone. I'd love to hear from each of you about how you use kiosks and what benefit they've provided.
Julie: We're using it for students to swipe their ID badges with a QR code to mark that they're coming into class. Orah has promised us that hall passes will be working in August, which we're very excited about. The teachers have told me that it works so quickly when students come in that the teacher is actually able to greet the children, as opposed to standing there hovering and making sure attendance is being taken. Then they can go back at the end of class and make sure that if someone didn't swipe or was late, the attendance is correct. Teachers say they now have more time to greet the children and welcome them into the classroom.
Emily: And what does the hall pass allow for?
[00:14:00] Julie: We can track which students are going where. They swipe in to class and they're marked present. If they have to go to the nurse, guidance, testing, or leave for an excused reason, we can track where the children are, and then they scan back in to confirm they're back in class or in their next class. If they've been gone for 30 or 40 minutes, our AP can check whether they did in fact go to the library, tech room, or guidance. And if we have a fire drill or lockdown, we would know where those children are.
Nicole: I would love that. My principal two weeks ago just said, "How can we automate this even more?" I said, "Don't tempt me with a good time." So Emily, we'll talk.
We also use kiosks, but not to that extent. For us, it's when students are coming in -- our kids have a rotating schedule with a free period. Some can come in a little later if their free period is first, or leave a little earlier if it's last. We use the kiosk as a way to check in and out. Our middle school has two in the office. The high school has one on the main floor and one in the high school office. Students do a pretty good job of checking in and out. If they leave during their free period, they know they have to sign out and sign back in.
We also use one in our health room and in our library. Our library is the supervised study hall space for ninth graders, so they have to sign in at the beginning of class so our librarians aren't the ones having to stand and take attendance.
[00:17:00] Emily: Am I right to remember, Nicole, that on your kiosks students authenticate with a PIN?
Nicole: Yes, they use a PIN code.
Emily: And Julie, you mentioned for class attendance students use a QR code, so the camera on the iPad reads the QR code to authenticate. There are a couple of different ways those can be set up. We also have RFID coming -- the ability to use an RFID card or wristband to tap and authenticate -- which will add an additional layer.
Julie: Will the student app be able to do that too?
Emily: We'll talk about it later. So knowing the journey each of you went on with kiosks -- and it wasn't always pretty, there were some pain points along the way -- what would you say was the biggest learning from that period?
[00:18:00] Julie: One of our biggest issues was that the iPads were constantly logging out. Our tech department was constantly running from building to building to sign them back in. Then I believe there was an update at the end of last semester, and that just stopped. We haven't had any issues with them logging out since. Even when the iPad restarts, it logs right back in.
Nicole: We had that same issue. Initially we thought it was because I had set them all up under my login. Then it kind of figured itself out at the end of last semester. We also had an issue with the iPads getting knocked offline -- we weren't sure if it was our internet connection -- but that resolved itself around the same time. The only time it goes offline now is when the power goes out due to weather.
One other thing I learned later was that when we make changes to schedules in Blackbaud, I was waiting until the next day for it to take effect on the iPads. I didn't realize there's a button I can push that syncs the data the same day. I learned that the hard way, but I've moved on. Things are great now.
Julie: I've become good friends with that sync button.
Emily: We all have. And this is exactly the type of advice that's really helpful to hear. We have great developers who have become our best friends here, haven't they, Grant?
[00:21:00] Julie: On a side note, I log into Blackbaud a lot, and I've noticed that in the attendance section, the middle school seems to be the one taking the most attendance because they're using Orah. Whereas last year the numbers were so high -- teachers weren't being accountable enough -- and now the number is so low that only a few teachers maybe forget to take attendance. That number has changed quite a bit because the teachers really like the Orah app.
Nicole: High school is a little further ahead in using Orah, and we've had some middle school administrative shifts, so high school is ready to use Orah for all that it offers, but middle school isn't quite there yet. This summer I'm going to have to do some pushing to get everybody on the same page. We started a little bit with that this spring with the reasons, saying "Cut this out, use the notes, we don't need all of those." But yes, we're all going to be using the parent entry link in the fall.
Emily: Are we, Nicole? Yes?
Nicole: Yes. Surprise. Are we?
Emily: We're all using it!
Nicole: Yay!
Emily: I've been hassling Nicole for some time to push this forward, so that's fantastic to hear. I've had a few parents as guinea pigs -- some that work here and some that don't -- and when we know they're going to be out of town I say, "Hey, try this. Let's see if it works." And they're like, "This is great. Can I use this all the time?" "Yes, please do." We're excited about everybody doing that, and possibly lower school jumping on board as well.
Julie: That's good to know, Nicole, because we do want to use the parent app here at Donna Klein too. I think we're getting there.
[00:23:00] Emily: And Julie, you said that middle school is taking the most attendance and that it's becoming easy for them because of automated attendance. What does that mean at an administrator level? What value does that add for your teams?
Julie: It's definitely helping with reporting. It's definitely helping when principals meet with parents about excessive absences or tardies. When a parent says "But my child was here," we can show them -- "Yes, but they kept coming late to class, and we can show they swiped in at this time." So we can show the parents that yes, your child is here, but they're not in class.
Because of the ease of use of the app, teachers are taking better attendance day to day. It's also nice that we've set it so they can go back six days to make changes, and I think that's been helpful per team and per grade so that teachers can work with each other. When a teacher's absent or had a meeting and someone covered their class, they can take attendance for each other, which has really helped administration know that attendance is getting taken.
[00:25:00] Nicole: That's helpful to know. We only give them one day to go back, but I think we might need to extend that a little.
Julie: We recently just extended it. They wanted to go back further, and I was very hesitant as the registrar because I'd rather know what's going on -- to make sure the child really wasn't here, or that they actually were. I think six days is really a good maximum. More than that is too much.
Emily: The learnings you've had along the way to get to that point are really valuable. In terms of advice for others -- for someone watching today or the recording who is an attendance admin at a school considering making this move -- what is one thing you would tell them that maybe nobody told you?
[00:26:00] Julie: I actually have a quote from our assistant principal. He said, "Trust Orah's process. They are transparent and honest."
Nicole: I don't have a quote, but I would second that. Orah has given me a lot of time back so that I can address the other things that come up in my role around discipline and everything else. Not having to sit and run reports is a huge deal.
I would also say: make sure that everyone in that admin role has had a conversation about the reasons so there's consistency. It's really hard to go back and patch those later. If you can have a standard -- this is what an excused absence is, this is what an unexcused absence is, the same with tardies -- and if that is consistent across the school, especially in a multi-divisional school, that is very helpful. When you're going back and saying "Why do we still have this?" and "Can we change it to this?" -- it clogs the system and makes it harder when it goes back into Blackbaud. I actually don't even run reports for attendance in Blackbaud anymore. I just run them from Orah now, because it's a lot more accurate. Having that conversation as you're getting started versus after you've been in it for a while will help.
[00:27:00] Julie: Another bonus: every once in a while Blackbaud may go down -- not often, but it does. What's nice is there's a backup system in Orah, so when you want to see a child's schedule, find where they need to be, or call the parent, it's a backup of information so you don't have to depend on one system. It would be rare for both to go down, but it's nice to have that backup so you can always get information on that child.
Emily: That's something we're only adding more visibility to -- that student schedule and ease of information access. Nicole, you talked about your teams being on board and having a clear vision for reasons. What other questions do you feel schools should be asking internally before they go live -- not questions to Orah, but inside their own schools?
[00:28:00] Nicole: Attendance policies by division. That was a big one for us. We are a little stricter in the high school because of where we're located in the city and how students can move in the building. Middle school students are kind of in clusters, so everyone generally knows where they are. Our attendance policy was very clear for high school, but that hasn't necessarily been the same for middle school or lower school.
Making sure that whatever you have K-12, there's some consistency in language -- I think that makes a difference in who's going to be ready to do what. We got rolling really quickly because we knew we needed more than what Blackbaud was giving us, and Orah was giving us the option to have that. So everybody was on board early, primarily because I said "We need to do something," and I just brought everybody with me.
Emily: You've been our cheerleader at University School of Nashville. I know we've tried so many different iterations to get to where we are, and I'm sure there will be more iterations as we potentially move to lower school. Julie, would you add anything?
[00:30:00] Julie: We're just holding out for the RFID scanners. That will be the selling point for our high school -- less opportunity for students to copy each other's QR codes or ID numbers. We're hoping it might not be August, but we know it's coming. Once that's in place we'll roll out Orah for the high school, and then high school teachers will take attendance in Orah instead of Blackbaud. The teachers have already said it's so much easier taking attendance in Orah, so that'll be a big push for next year.
[00:31:00] Emily: This is all really great to hear, and I want to make sure we have time for questions. Have any come into the chat, Grant or Alexis?
Grant: Yes. We have one from Liz for the panelists: do either of your schools use Orah for athletics attendance and/or special event attendance, like field trips or retreats?
Nicole: Our middle school has been trying to figure out how to do it in a consistent way. The way our middle school afternoon is structured, all their academic classes meet in the morning or right after lunch, and everything in the afternoon is some variation of study hall, their art elective, and PE or sports. We've gone back and forth about how to do it because of the way their schedule rotates every six to eight weeks. We have done it for PE and for getting on the bus to head to our fields, which are about 15-20 minutes from campus.
As for field trips, because we know who's going, the teacher will take attendance right as they're leaving and then we put it in the system. When they return, they double-check it. Either me or our admin assistant will usually put it in for the teachers for field trips.
[00:33:00] Julie: We have attendance field trip codes so that we can designate that these 30 kids went on the field trip, while the rest of the children were present at school. We use different attendance codes for that.
We're starting to dig further into athletics. We have a new athletic director this year, and now that they're using Blackbaud more with athletics, we're trying to have them use our other external systems as well for games, tryouts, and practices. That's coming, but we haven't used it yet.
Grant: The next question: what options are available for students to check in using the kiosk -- ID cards, QR codes, or manually on the iPad?
[00:34:00] Emily: From the kiosk, students can simply go up and type in their name as one option. If you want to add a layer of authentication, you can use PIN codes -- that's what USN has done. As of right now, for class attendance, you can use a QR code. Coming soon -- date TBD, but potentially four to six weeks -- we'll also have the ability to use RFID, both at a kiosk for simple check-in and check-out, and for automated class attendance.
The other option outside of kiosks for student check-ins is using an NFC tile along with the student app on a mobile device. Students would need to have their phones on them, but we find that's often used outside of class hours or on campuses where cell phone policies haven't been introduced.
Grant: Thank you, Emily. The next question is from Chris: how do you get your list of classes and who's in which classes into Orah? Was it automatic because of the Blackbaud sync, or is there a manual process?
[00:36:00] Nicole: For us, it was a simple sync. Even now when a student switches classes, if it happens during the school day I'll just hit the sync button and it pulls them over and automatically fixes it in Orah. We don't have to manually input anything into Orah. The closest we get is PINs at the beginning of the year for new students and our fifth graders -- and those PINs are literally their lunch codes, so they don't have to memorize a new number. As long as students and faculty are in Blackbaud, they get pulled over to Orah.
Julie: The rosters pull for us from Blackbaud straight to Orah as well. The QR codes we use are actually the user ID from Blackbaud, so that's how we create them. In theory, students could manually type in their user ID as a default if they didn't have their ID badge.
Grant: One final question, anonymous: did staff pushback surprise you, or did you see it coming, and how much did you have?
[00:37:00] Julie: We didn't have any. Once teachers realized that our tech team had pushed the Google Chrome extension to their browsers and they just had to click on it to log in and take attendance, we've had zero issues. No pushback at all.
Nicole: We only had a little bit of pushback because the prior system did have hall pass functionality. But because we wanted to continue the momentum of students using their ID badges, and because we knew Orah was listening to us and the hall passes were coming, we pushed forward. We didn't want to go backwards for a year, so we kept moving.
[00:38:00] And someone else just added: "Do you have issues with students sharing PIN codes to check in each other?"
Both of our kiosk checkpoints are in offices or with someone at a desk, so we have not had that issue. The kids know that their PIN is their lunch code, so they don't share it because they don't want people buying food on their parents' account. What I have seen is two students coming in and one is using the iPad and the other says "Just log me in too" while they're standing right there together. But it hasn't been a case of "You log me in while I'm not there" -- I promise you they don't remember each other's PINs -- so we haven't had any issues with that.
[00:39:00] Emily: It's often a question we get with QR codes and student devices -- what's to stop kids from trying to cheat the system? We know they always will, so putting in some guardrails is all we can really do. And it sounds like both of you have put in those guardrails. Brilliant idea having the lunch codes, Nicole -- I wouldn't want people spending my lunch money either.
Knowing we just have a couple of minutes left, I wanted to thank you both so much. I say this every time I meet with accounts I work closely with, but it is really such a pleasure to have people who are so passionate about their jobs and their communities, and who are so willing to share their experiences openly in this forum.
A few things I want to leave with before we hop off: moving to class attendance in Orah is something real schools have been working on, and we've worked with so many schools on this and learned so much along the way. Just like each of these schools had their learning moments and points of friction, we've been on this journey together, and with each school we learn so much. The recording from this session we will share out by end of week at the latest. Any questions that come up as you meet with your internal teams -- please do book time with myself, Alexis, or Grant to explore those. I'll pass it to Grant for some final thoughts.
[00:42:00] Grant: You said the thank yous better than I possibly could, but thank you both so much for being here. We really appreciate it. I echo 100% what Emily said -- seeing your passion, not even just about Orah but about how you run your schools, it's very encouraging to see.
I do want to mention the webinar we did last week, May 21st, showing some changes to attendance. To both of you and to anyone watching or listening live -- give it a quick watch. We're going to release some short clips, but there's a new reconciliation view we're super happy about. It all came from feedback from schools just like yours. We'll share that out as well. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you again to our amazing panelists. We appreciate you.
Emily: Yes, thank you so much. Everyone enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll talk soon. Bye everyone.
Julie / Nicole: See you. Bye.
