by Smartcare | Jun 22, 2020
Recently we teamed up with our friends at IntelliKid Systems to learn how you can add Virtual Tours to your enrollment toolbox. The informative webinar went over how to make a virtual tour, why it should be an important part of your strategy and all of the ways you can maximize its effect on your enrollment.
Increasingly, parents are asking to tour a new facility remotely. Even in the pre-COVID world, this request would arise from parents who were moving and wanted to see a school before their move or from parents who are strapped for time and could squeeze in a virtual tour during work but couldn’t make the actual trip.
Now, in the post-COVID world, virtual tours help parents reduce exposure. Most importantly, virtual tours aren’t mutually exclusive with in-person tours, meaning you’re likely gaining tours that wouldn’t have happened otherwise which can only benefit your school’s enrollment.
For all these reasons, virtual tours should be part of your offering. Now that you understand why virtual tours are important, let’s discuss how best to conduct a virtual tour.
The first thing you should do is to map out the way you want to showcase your facility. It’s important to decide which classrooms you will be showing, what outdoor yards, and to have a concise walking path between all of the elements of the tour. Then, you will film the tour from the point of view of someone walking around. It’s important to remember that the camera will be your prospective parent’s “eyes” so be sure to capture all of the unique elements you normally would in an in-person tour. In our webinar, we discussed the right tools for the job, which in our case was a iPhone 11 pro camera and a stabilizer made by DJI. Once you have your video ready, you can then connect with your prospective parent over a few different video conferencing services. We discussed a few of the options, including Zoom and Google Meets. While sharing your screen, and your facility video, you can then be free to walk the inquiring parent through your building just like you would in-person! Using this method allows you to engage and build a relationship with the parent, answer any questions while still maintaining distance and adhering to any new guidelines that prohibit in-person tours.
For a more detailed discussion about the methods, impact and to learn how to make your own virtual tour, we encourage you to watch the recording of our recent webinar with IntelliKid Systems.
Good luck!
by Nicci Troiani | Jun 2, 2020
Smartcare believes strongly that education in general and childcare in particular are entering a “new normal”. What this means is that many of the common practices in place before COVID-19 will need to be replaced with practices better suited to current challenges.
One of the first things that we think the student will change is the check-in process.
In the pre-COVID era, the process typically involved a parent entering a common space like a lobby, interacting with a fingerprint scanner to authenticate themselves, and then handing off a child to a staff member.
Before COVID, Smartcare modernized this process with the use of touchless QR codes, and while removing a fingerprint scanner dramatically reduces contact points, we think the process can be better.
We think the best practice in the new normal will look something like this:
- Families will queue in socially distanced location such as the family’s car in a drop-off line in front of the school.
- Either the parent or the student’s teacher will complete a pre-drop-off health-check. The CDC has provided guidance and we anticipate that guidance will evolve over time. At this time, those guidelines include:
- Temperature checks for fevers over 100.4 degrees.
- Signs of illness including coughing, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, fatigue, extreme fussiness, nausea
- Technology can automate validating the health-check to ensure it meets regulatory requirements and the school’s own preferences. A child who poses a risk to others never enters the facility, and so that staff and parents have the peace of mind that their child is a in a safe environment.
- The student’s teacher can take custody of the child in a well-ventilated, socially-separated space such as directly from the child’s car in a drop-off line, and escort the child directly to a classroom. From here, the child will stay with classmates and remain isolated from other classes in the school, minimizing contact points along the way. This ensures separation from other students in other classes.
- Within a school, classes should be kept as separate as possible. Where common areas must be shared, to the extent possible, those areas should be used by only one class at a time and disinfected between uses. All areas and toys should be disinfected regularly.
Where the above procedure isn’t possible, we recommend the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and barriers to minimize the exposure to staff and families.
Smartcare has functionality to support the new normal in your center and our team of customer success managers can help you update your procedures for the new normal. We have a report to help you track health checks and our teacher app allows for touchless check-in wherever its best suited for you to do so. You should expect improvements from us over the summer as we get more feedback.
We are committed to be your technology partner as we navigate into the new normal together.
[activecampaign form=27]
