December 2017 Newsletter
Have a wonderful holiday season and happy New Year!
Our first Status Quo Breaker is...
Melissa Nevels, Office Manager at Weeks Middle School, is being recognized as our first Status Quo Breaker! The Status Quo Breaker is a traveling trophy recognition of an employee for their contribution to process improvement, to say thank you for being Lean and/or for helping make Des Moines Public Schools Leaner. Melissa has been an active project team member since the beginning of DMPS's Lean journey when she participated in the Procurement Kaizen. She is always willing to pilot improvements and give her perspective on how changes will impact school staff. Thank you Melissa! |
Student Enrollment Kaizen
The Student Registration, Enrollment and Unenrollment Kaizen was one of the first continuous improvement projects held in September 2015. The project team was tasked with improving the process from start to end, improving data accuracy within the student information system and removing barriers to get and also keep students in classes. Now in sustainment, the team's successes are
The Student Registration, Enrollment and Unenrollment Kaizen was one of the first continuous improvement projects held in September 2015. The project team was tasked with improving the process from start to end, improving data accuracy within the student information system and removing barriers to get and also keep students in classes. Now in sustainment, the team's successes are
- Online registration is utilized with both returning families and new families
- One Welcome Center process for all families
- DMPS presence at the Iowa State Fair to register families
- Paper forms required after online registration are now electronic and incorporated into the registration process
Bringing the Power of Lean to Education
Governing Better, Faster, Cheaper recognizes Des Moines Public School's Lean journey as a national example for education. Read the article here.
Governing Better, Faster, Cheaper recognizes Des Moines Public School's Lean journey as a national example for education. Read the article here.
Shout Outs!
Thank you Emily Behrens, Tanya Stark, Jen Hahn, Sarah Dougherty, Peggy Krentz, Bridget Van Every, Robert Bledsoe and Dan Sloan for a wonderful project event improving the new teacher orientation process!
Great work to the whole HR team for steadily transitioning paper to electronic and being 85% paperless with the goal of being 100%!
Awesome job to the whole Payroll team for deliberately removing paper timesheets and paper checks to help streamline the payroll process!
Way to go Special Education for utilizing Lean tools to review and improve child study team meetings!
Thank you to the Secondary Office Mangers, the HR Leadership team and the Accounts Payable team for allowing me to attend your team meetings to talk about Lean!
Great work to the whole HR team for steadily transitioning paper to electronic and being 85% paperless with the goal of being 100%!
Awesome job to the whole Payroll team for deliberately removing paper timesheets and paper checks to help streamline the payroll process!
Way to go Special Education for utilizing Lean tools to review and improve child study team meetings!
Thank you to the Secondary Office Mangers, the HR Leadership team and the Accounts Payable team for allowing me to attend your team meetings to talk about Lean!