Applying for PreK once required families to submit information through the district website and then enter much of it again during enrollment. Staff reviewed each submission before families could move forward, creating extra steps for everyone involved.
A collaboration among the district’s PreK, Enrollment and Enterprise Applications teams has brought that process into one place. The work helped earn the School District of Lancaster a 2026 Synergy Achievement Award from Edupoint, the company behind the district’s Synergy student information system.
The project began with an idea from Marsha Riddick, manager of Child Accounting and Enrollment. Travis Whitson, manager of Enterprise Applications, and Applications Support Specialist Paula Kehoe developed a dedicated workflow within Synergy, working with PreK and Enrollment staff to shape how it would function for employees and families.
Staff can now review and act on the same live application without duplicate data entry or a separate handoff between systems. More than 400 applications have been processed through the new workflow, with an automated daily report keeping participating teams informed about pending and accepted applications.
“I feel really proud and honored that our work with the PreK app is being recognized,” Riddick said. “What makes this recognition especially meaningful to me is that it really represents a collaborative effort.”
Riddick credited the technology team with bringing her idea to life and the PreK and Enrollment teams with testing the process, providing feedback and putting it into practice with families.
“IT created the tool, and our PreK and Enrollment teams helped turn that tool into a process that works for our families and staff,” she said.
Dr. Shaun Perez, supervisor of State and Federal Programs, said the new system helped staff work through complex information while keeping applications moving.
“Travis and Paula’s work helped us streamline the PreK application and enrollment workflow while making the experience easier and more efficient for our families,” Perez said.
The 2026 award also recognized the team’s work to build a foundation for embedding notes and instructions directly within Synergy’s setup screens. Those additions help preserve the reasoning behind system configurations when responsibilities change or new employees join the team. Staff can find guidance where they work instead of searching through old emails or relying on a colleague’s memory.
This is SDoL’s third recognition through the national Synergy Achievement Awards program.
The 2025 award recognized Enterprise Applications’ collaboration with McCaskey High School on a fully digital hall pass system within Synergy. McCaskey staff adopted the process, replacing paper passes and gaining real-time visibility into student movement. The system saves McCaskey more than $20,000 annually and opened the door for other district schools to make similar changes.
SDoL also received an honorable mention in 2021, accompanied by a $1,000 technology grant, following its implementation of Synergy during the transition to pandemic distance learning.
The award-winning projects represent one part of Enterprise Applications’ responsibilities. The team supports Synergy, Schoology and ClassLink, along with connected district applications. Its work includes preparing systems for enrollment and scheduling, managing software updates and moving student information into each new school year.
Since Synergy went live during the 2019–20 school year, the team has closed 18,841 internal help desk tickets and resolved another 2,806 tickets with Edupoint. Staff support has remained steady at approximately 3,000 internal tickets annually, alongside ongoing projects and routine system maintenance.
As the team’s expertise has grown, its reliance on vendor assistance has declined. The share of requests handled internally rose from 68% during Synergy’s first year to 91% in 2025–26. Among staff survey responses collected over the past three years, 97.5% rated the support experience Excellent or Very Good.
Enterprise Applications has also helped the district make better use of its technology budget. During the most recent Synergy contract renewal, the team removed unused services and negotiated a reduction of more than $190,000 over five years. Separately funded improvements enhanced enrollment tools and enabled attendance letters to be translated into families’ home languages.
For Whitson, the recognition provides an opportunity to acknowledge the people responsible for keeping those systems working.
“This team means everything to me, as does SDoL, and there aren’t words to describe my admiration of them,” he said. “The systems we support run relatively smoothly given how large they are, and it’s easy to not see what goes into making that happen.”
The two most recent awards each included a $2,500 technology grant and registration for the national Synergy CONNECT conference. The team is using those opportunities for professional development, including Subject Matter Expert certification training for two staff members.
The awards recognize solutions that have already improved district operations while helping the team build the knowledge needed for what comes next. Those improvements can mean a simpler application for families or clearer information and faster support for employees. Behind each one is a small team finding practical ways to make the district’s systems work better for the people who rely on them.