An Educational Enterprise

When public school budgets dip and money is tight, supportive services often feel the effects right away.

Beginning around 2006, when school systems across the state of Oregon were in difficult financial times, printing was curtailed. According to David Hughes, manager of Auxiliary Services for Salem-Keizer Public Schools in Salem, OR, his in-plant's total number of impressions dropped approximately 31 percent over six years.

Hughes says the cuts didn't just affect his in-plant, though. Oregon has a system of Education Service Districts, commonly referred to as ESDs. These operations exist to provide supportive services to school districts that may not have the means to supply them. Many ESDs offered printing, and Hughes explains that during this time, some of these print shops were closed.

Starting the Rebound

Salem-Keizer School District is the state's second largest, with 66 schools and and approximately 42,000 students. It serves the cities of Salem, Oregon's capital, and Keizer, which borders Salem to the north.

Hughes says he came on board in November of 2011, toward the end of the in-plant's slide in impressions. He explains that when he arrived, Auxiliary Services was not struggling due to customer dissatisfaction; rather, overall budgetary issues were forcing the district to rethink its spending.

"It wasn't an issue that we were in crisis as an operation and people were leaving us," he states. "We were seeing reductions, but there was certainly some impact just based on the economy."

Auxiliary Services, which includes Reprographics and Mail Services, falls under the umbrella of the district's Business and Support Services Department. The entire department and the 15-employee in-plant conducts its business under the E3 model, or Enhancing Educational Excellence.

Within this concept is the attitudinal approach that the entire department takes in providing its various services. Hughes says the in-plant has taken this initiative to heart, and part of its rebound has been due to the customer-centric approach of E3 and how it stresses putting the educational needs of the students first.

The Voice of the Customer

Aside from producing quality work, Hughes says one of the most important jobs his in-plant has is to discover themes in its customers' needs and figure out a way to address them. For example, through multiple face-to-face interactions with customers about how the in-plant could better serve them, Hughes uncovered a desire for wide-format printing capabilities. This made it an easy decision to start printing posters and banners, many of which are now hung throughout the district.

"One of the themes we heard through conversations we were having with folks is, 'What about wide-format banners?' " Hughes says. "So we said, 'Let's get into the banner business.' Through one of our ESDs that closed, we were able to acquire some equipment, and we were able to get into the wide-format banner business."

Hughes says taking this customer-centric approach not only allows the in-plant to better assess what it should be prioritizing for its customers, but also makes Auxiliary Services more approachable for the district's other employees. This is why, when Hughes arrived at Salem-Keizer, he implemented some staff realignment to improve customer service. One important move, he says, was instituting a customer service representative (CSR) on the front lines. Some of the goals in doing this, he explains, were that when customers call into the front desk with a question, they do not need to wait for their call to be transferred elsewhere. The team that answers the phone will likely have the answer, making for a much faster process.

Other customer-focused tasks that CSRs take on include meeting with customers face-to-face every week to see if their needs are being met. When needed, the CSR can also provide training on how to use EFI Digital StoreFront, the in-plant's job submission software.

"We're really engaged with trying to listen to our customers," Hughes explains. "They don't know our business, so they don't tell us what to do. But if we really listen to them, we can figure out what they need or want, and then we figure out how to do it."

An Educational Approach

As an in-plant, Hughes says Auxiliary Services is about much more than providing printed products and reliable mailings. Though his department may not be situated in the classroom, as employees of the school district, he says he and his staff make supporting the education of Salem-Keizer's students its highest priority.

Part of this approach is determining areas where the in-plant can step in to provide services that can lead to the faculty and volunteers spending more time with students in their respective buildings.

One example Hughes points to is an issue the district's middle and high schools were having with their progress reports. He explains that every six weeks, these schools send out a report to parents and guardians

detailing how their child is performing in school.

In many cases, the schools included other information in these mailings about upcoming school events or news, like open houses or concerts. Hughes says parent volunteers were hand inserting these reports and other documents.

When talking with its customers, the in-plant learned they were frustrated with this hand-inserting process, so the shop stepped in to free up these volunteers to spend more time with students. Using secure FlexStream document processing software and the department's automated inserting equipment, Hughes says this issue has become much less of a headache for the district.

"We've taken all of that work out of the building so those folks can focus on student achievement...and we take care of that support piece," he explains. "We've been doing that for about a year and a half now."

Another instance of Auxiliary Services stepping in to provide a large volume of educational material came when the district implemented the Common Core math curriculum at the elementary school level this past school year. This allowed the district to use materials from EngageNY, a freely available source of materials and resources. By printing these materials for the district, the in-plant is directly supporting the new curriculum, while increasing its impressions. Over the last six months, it has produced approximately 85,000 booklets. What's more, there have been conversations about having Auxiliary Services provide these materials to districts that don't have the capability of producing them, Hughes says.

But Auxiliary Services doesn't just provide educational support for the district between the months of September and June. Hughes says that many students taking on a summer program are provided with kits of printed material, pencils, erasers and other supplies to help keep them on task during the break. Because the district's Central Storage Warehouse is part of Auxiliary Services, it can provide these materials for the kits and for the classrooms during the school year.

"We really want to serve [our customers]," Hughes says. "We have a heart for the kids like they do. We just aren't in the building."

Impressions on the Rise

As the economy has improved and Auxiliary Services has implemented these changes, impression numbers are up and momentum is building for the future. Hughes says that during the 2013-14 school year, the department realized a 22.5 percent increase from the year before. As of press time, there had been a 32.3 percent increase year to date, he says.

While part of the improvement has been a departure from the lean budget issues of the past, Hughes says as word spreads around the district about Auxiliary Services' capabilities, approachability and fast turnaround, the in-plant will continue this positive trend. Hughes says the in-plant typically meets its next-day delivery goal on at least 95 percent of digitally submitted copy orders that come in by noon.

"We don't want them waiting," he says. "If they need it, they need it—and they need it now."

And although insourcing is not a major part of its business, Hughes says Auxiliary Services is able to bring in work from other school districts and government agencies. This additional revenue is nice, he says, but more importantly, it allows the department to help more students with their education.

"We're about educating kids," Hughes says. "Not just Salem-Keizer kids. If we can support another school district using our capabilities and knowledge, and that helps those students, then so much the better."