New software has the ability to improve your school’s reputation, create efficiencies in every department and establish your school for long-term success. This makes choosing a new Student Information System (SIS) one of the most significant decisions a school can make. 

For smaller schools where every staff member wears multiple hats and every dollar counts, making the right decision is vital.  

We spoke with leaders from three small schools who have recently made the switch to Veracross:  

  • Christopher Hibbard, Head of Advancement at Pine Point School (just under 150 students). 
  • Jennifer Nearn, Admissions Coordinator at Summit Classical Christian School (approximately 250 students) 
  • Meme Leclair, Business Coordinator at Summit Classical Christian School. 
  • Rena Berger, Executive Director at Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov (approximately 120 students). 

Their insights offer practical advice for other independent schools considering the same leap. 

  

What is one piece of advice that you would give to a small school considering a SIS switch? 
 
 
 

Rena: “Do not look at short-term goals, look at your long-term goals. Don’t go with cost over function. And outsource where you can.” 

Meme: “Don’t feel the pressure to roll out all the features at once. There is an advantage to rolling out features slowly. That helps families, faculty administrators and students all adjust to the new features as you roll them out. Take advantage of your video calls. They were a tremendous help, and the Veracross consultants and technicians are just wonderful. No question is too dumb.”  
 
 
 

Jennifer: “As you’re looking at different software providers, pay attention to the customer service that’s offered. I think that of all the programs I’ve worked with in my professional life and in education, Veracross really has been the most attentive.”  

“Other companies might say, “Oh, well, that’s on our website”; they’ll just drive you to a link. But Veracross says, “Would you like to set up a phone call?” Or when I email them, I have a response within hours. And some of the questions I have, I’m like, oh, my goodness! Am I wording this well? Because it’s quite a complicated question. Yet they always know exactly what I’m talking about. So check if you’re going to be served in a personal way with the customer service that’s behind the platform.”  

Christopher: “As a small school, it’s opportunity cost. We need our databases to be working for us, not against us, right? Consider all of that friction that’s created by using piecemeal systems or systems that won’t grow with you. Bigger schools have that luxury. We don’t have that luxury. We need to be as efficient as possible. If you can make this investment, you’ll have a system that you’ll be able to use for decades. It’s invaluable.”   

 

What was the biggest challenge in changing your SIS?   

Meme: “I would say getting the faculty on board with the change. Provide ample tutorials and guided videos to help them along. Teacher training is something we’re continuing to work on.”   

Jennifer: “When I came on board in the middle of last year and was introduced to Veracross, it was slightly overwhelming. I remember a colleague saying to me, “Oh, just give it a few weeks,” and I thought, there’s no way — this is like learning a different language. But she was absolutely right. It might look beyond what you think it is when you first get associated with it, but just stick with it. Stay the course. Use those tutorials. Read those articles. Take advantage of your account manager. And it does click really, really quickly. And once it does, you’ll realise that you aren’t sure how you operated before Veracross.”  

Christopher: “We were all feeling frustrations with our old system. So telling folks that we were going to go to a new system that was going to solve some of these problems, that was easy. But selling the board on the fact that we needed to invest in this as a small school was the biggest challenge for us. It’s not a small amount of money for us. It’s not a small budget item. So making that case was challenging. But we did, and we’re all glad that we won that battle.”  

  

Why did you end up choosing Veracross? 
  

Christopher: “Because the system’s better. It’s better in all ways. I’m not a database expert, but I was very involved in our transition to Veracross. We continue to see week by week, implementation by implementation, how the Veracross system was built for independent schools, by people that think about schools and the way that schools work. The one record is the way a database should be built for school.”  

“I’ll also say the flexibility. Our previous system was very rigid in the way that things worked on the student side of things. We’ve just been amazed with the flexibility and the way that we can customise and adjust things to how we work here at Pine Point, and the way our admission office wants to work. That’s been a huge, huge bonus.”  

Rena: “We wound up choosing a Veracross SIS because it met our needs across the board, and that was really the main decision point. We needed something that was robust. We needed something that knew what it was doing when it came to small private schools, which a lot of systems don’t. When you have to teach the SIS what you’re doing on the back end, it’s a challenge.” 

  

What has the Veracross implementation process been like? 

Christopher: “We used a Veracross Service partner for our implementation. And we’re still using them. It’s been invaluable. A year ago, we decided to move everything except development over to Veracross. So this has been our first year for admissions, student information and all of billing. All of that has been going on and now we’re migrating data for development. As of July 1st, 2025, we’ll be fully Veracross. We’ve been with our old system for over 20 years, so that was a lot of data. and it was helpful for Veracross to advise us that we may want to take that development piece separately, and we’re glad that we did. It’s going really well.”  

Meme: “Everyone was already wearing too many hats, so I was the dedicated implementation manager for our school, and I primarily coordinated the implementation of each of the modules. I was responsible for importing data for the core—the first step. With other modules, like student billing, we had the person who actually did student billing. They took over and actually implemented that module. Our admission coordinator implemented the admission module. And we didn’t do it all at once, we did it one module at a time, which really helped.”  

“We were assigned an implementation consultant through Veracross, and they just guided us step by step, and with every step, we had frequent video calls. I just felt very guided throughout the process, and if I got stuck, they were available. The resources that Veracross provides, the videos that they have us watch, the Veracross community; those were all essential and very helpful throughout the implementation process.” 

 

Are you and your team ready to see Veracross in action? Request a demo to learn more about how choosing Veracross as your small school’s SIS can streamline workflows, create data efficiency and inspire positive community experiences.