The Metro subway ride from DC Public Schools to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center (DCCC) was slick, excepting only that the fare system is a little too complex.  I ride the bus in 4 days a week at home, as does most of the Shiftboard crew.  So I take a critical look at other city’s public transit systems.  DC has nothing to be ashamed of (although our new Seattle light rail trains purr like kittens compared to the DC Metro trains).

At the convention center, I met up with a number of good folks who run the Centerplate food and beverage operation.  Centerplate DCCC has been a customer for just about a year now.  They put our system through its paces.  I love to see it.

–Managers complete their “schedule requests” right in Shiftboard templates.  This used to be a completely non-standard process via email in all different formats.

–Their scheduling team, led by Patrick Thelwell, loads all the schedule requests, and Shiftboard auto-assigns all their shifts based on union seniority.  No one is auto-assigned any overtime shifts or double-booked.  Additional shifts are assigned to temp agencies.

–Each person in the system has an assigned paycode or individual hourly rate, so the controller Curtis McDonald and his team can look out 2-3 weeks to see a very accurate labor cost forecast based on exactly how many folks are scheduled by department.

–Our system interfaces with their Attendance Enterprise (AE) time tracking system, so all schedules can be immediately compared to actuals.  Curtis calls Shiftboard and AE to key “controls” they employ to manage to the numbers.

Near the end of the day, I sat down with the GM Vince McPhail.  As with any good customer, he and Curtis always have a couple of requested enhancements, and we aim to please.  But it sure feels good to see an operation like his that not only produces a great finished product in terms of culinary delights for national and international events, but also uses systems like ours and AE to run the business by numbers and manage the P&L carefully.

Heck of a day.  By the time I made it through security at Reagan National, I was exhausted.  The only downer of my DC tour, not a bar stool open in the terminal.  I could have used one beer to wind it up, but still a very positive visit.  Some things are going right in DC.

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From the Treasury meeting, I did a rushed cab ride over to the headquarters building of DC Public Schools (DCPS) in the northeast section of the city.  We have been working jointly with a survey and data collection partner, WorldAPP, to facilitate the enhanced process DCPS is implementing to evaluate nearly 8,000 new teacher and principal applicants. Shiftboard is happy to be a part of the effort, facilitating all the applicants self-scheduling along with the associated scheduling of nearly 200 interviewers.  As usual, our API and open platform is saving everyone time by allowing WorldAPP to populate applicants directly into Shiftboard from the survey portal.

DCPS is breaking new ground here nationwide.  Among other things, all teacher applicants that reach the 2^nd round are required to do an “audition”, providing a 30 minute lesson in their area of expertise to a live classroom of kids.  Doesn’t that sound like the type of rigorous evaluation process you would want your local school system’s teachers put through?

Here was my main takeaway from DCPS: This ain’t your standard big city public school system. These folks are on a mission to make a step change improvement in the outcomes of a lot of kids’ lives and opportunities through public education. I got a sense in three hours there that they were the real deal.  Let me provide just a few indicators:

–The HR recruiting team is led by Sheila Sarem, a bundle of positive energy and urgency who is about as far from a pencil-pushing bureaucrat as I could imagine.  She worked in sales for Cisco Systems in Europe for 6 years before coming to DC to work for the Obama campaign.  She said she then decided to stick around because the city needed help.  Amen.

–Lizzie, their main Shiftboard system administrator, just happens to have a masters in public health from the University of Texas.  I tried not to act surprised.  She was instructing me on the system after the first few minutes of our meeting.

–Sheila’s team is out to find the most talented teachers in the country, including every Teach for America veteran they can get their hands on.  The email signature of the entire 10 person group is the same: “Be a part of public education’s greatest turnaround story.  Apply now.”

Focused.  Aligned.  Motivated.  As I left after 3 hours to catch a metro train, I was thinking “BRING IT, DCPS.  Make it happen!”  Not only that, but as a parent of 3 Seattle Public School elementary students, I want it to happen . . . and soon.

-Rob

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