"School boards used to stay mostly the same, with slow change cycles. That doesn't happen anymore. Things change so quickly and frequently that you need to be able to adapt at all times."
Nicky Westlake
Controller of Finance, DSBN
The District School Board of Niagara (DSBN) is committed to student success above all else. Founded on the motto "Achieving Success Together," the district focuses on equipping students with the knowledge and skills they need for success in the modern workplace. The board is also active in the wider Niagara community, establishing partnerships with organizations like the United Way, the Tecumseh Centre for Aboriginal Education, and the Regional Government.
Spanning all twelve municipalities of the Niagara region, DSBN is responsible for roughly 43,000 K-12 students across 77 elementary schools and 17 secondary schools. Governed by a board of 11 elected trustees, the district employs nearly 2,600 teachers and over 1,300 support staff.
Originally, DSBN managed its financial processes with a legacy system first installed in 1988. The platform did exactly what they needed it to do for nearly thirty years. However, by 2018, the district recognized that the solution was beginning to show its age.
"With the magnitude of reporting coming from the Ministry of Education, we found ourselves spending more and more time on paperwork," explains DSBN Controller of Finance Nicky Westlake. "We were frequently asked to provide reports with just a few weeks' notice. We needed a system that could do this rapidly — our existing solution was held back by paperwork and rigid processes."
This problem was only further exacerbated by the district's rapid expansion, adding even more paperwork to the pile.
"Our growth, enrollment, and employee growth was huge," continues Nicky. "On the business side, we had to find a way to do more with less. We also had to ensure our financial processes and systems were largely invisible to staff."
After briefly evaluating their options, the board decided to go paperless. The need for agility and scalability weren't the only factors guiding this decision. Westlake and her colleagues also wanted better reporting capabilities and an easier way to search their records.
But most notably, they wanted to support remote work, allowing them to go out, assist schools, and train staff. They also wanted less reliance on deliveries from schools to their main office, as it was a very slow and lengthy process. With all this in mind, a vision quickly emerged: Consolidating everything into one solution.
In 2018, DSBN made that vision a reality.
Initially, DSBN transitioned from their legacy solution onto an older version of Sparkrock. It was a massive and welcome change, even if some of their old processes couldn't be done in the new system immediately. Then, just four years later, the district had to make another switch — this time to Sparkrock 365.
They were hesitant at first to make the change.
"We'd been in the same legacy system for 30 years before 2018, and now, just four years later, we were being told to upgrade again," says Nicky. "We were hesitant. It was a big undertaking, and our teams were comfortable. But we realized there's really no good time for a transition like this, so we ripped the band-aid off and went all-in."
DSBN now uses Sparkrock 365 for all their financial processes. Nicky was incredibly pleased with the new platform's ease of use, noting that they could train people with only a one-page handout. The migration process was also very smooth, taking about a month from start to finish.
"The system was so user-friendly and easy to follow that even doing the migration didn't require much training," she continues. "We did our training in January 2024, just after the holidays, and it only took one hour before the teams were up and running. We've since received emails from secretaries and office staff about how intuitive everything is now."
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Following the rollout of Sparkrock, DSBN has achieved a few key goals:
All of DSBN's financial services and financial processes are now paperless. This has considerably reduced paper costs, while also allowing the district to go from daily couriers to two couriers per week. DSBN has also reclaimed some of their office space by removing fifty file cabinets.
There's another advantage to going paperless, too — everything is now stored in one place, easily searchable and accessible to anyone with the right permissions.
"I have full visibility into the board's finances," says Nicky. "I can quickly find any information I need and arrange it on screen however I need to see it."
DSBN is one of the first boards to set up Employee Expense Reimbursement and Purchasing Cards within Sparkrock 365. Prior to deployment, it usually took roughly two weeks to pay employees back. Now, however, it's rare for employees not to be paid back within the week — Nicky estimates the district has seen roughly a 50% reduction in reimbursement time, with some even happening within 24 hours.
The district has set up all 4000 of their employees within the system and given them a simple ten-step process to manage their own reimbursements. Expenses are kept simple and straightforward so as to be easier to work with, and employees only get access to the account they need to run an expense through, such as mileage claims.
Sparkrock 365 also comes with a lot of new reporting capabilities. Before, DSBN needed to export data and put it into a template to create reports. Now, everything is automated, not only reducing the district's administrative workload but also allowing them to provide better service to end-users, with status updates down to individual processes and tasks.
In addition to addressing core challenges and achieving significant outcomes, DSBN recognized several ancillary benefits in its transition to Sparkrock 365.
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