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Athletic directors know full well how tricky it can be to get the signatures needed from students, parents, physicians, and staff on high school athletic physical forms.

When you rely on paper forms only, additional challenges arise, such as illegible handwriting, misplaced files, and a time-exhaustive data-entry process to transfer the information over to your student information system.

Students can’t participate in sports activities until their physical forms are turned in. To improve the student-athlete experience and ensure that all students who want to play sports are eligible, districts need to do everything they can to optimize the form distribution and collection processes.

With that in mind, here are some tips to enhance those processes and, as a result, ensure a higher percentage of students are eligible for sports when the season begins:

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If you’re like many athletic directors, you probably spend more time every day than you’d like managing endless paperwork, tracking down students, and parents to get signatures, and reconciling incomplete or incorrect data.

Investing in a modern student-athlete management system can address many of these frustrating daily struggles. In fact, with the right technology, you can also make it easier to keep parents  informed, while increasing the likelihood that athletes meet eligibility requirements and are healthy enough to play—not to mention reducing medical, legal, PR, and insurance risks for your school and district.

Here’s how a student-athlete management system does all those things:

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What Is the National Athletic Directors Conference?

The NADC is America’s premier annual conference for interscholastic sports administrators. This year, more than 2,000 ADs are expected to attend the event on Dec. 13–17, 2019, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

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What is your definition of registration? Is it tossing papers in a stack? Or, is it a process including collection, verification, and distribution? Historically, “registration” has been associated with completion of paperwork or online forms. But registration has evolved. Athletic Administrators must collect accurate information using a single system for parents, students, and staff; then ensure data rests in the right hands before a deadline or, worse, an emergency.

Do these changing demands require re-thinking registration?

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We are sensitive to all security and privacy concerns. In fact, security and privacy are our top priorities in providing our services to thousands of school districts throughout the United States. We are often asked if our service is subject to any federal privacy laws.  Keep reading to learn how federal privacy laws apply to FinalForms.

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We often receive the following question from district administrators, assistants, and secretaries:

"Do you have any suggestions to drive parent and student action based on your experience with so many districts?"

Excellent question! We understand the dilemma. School districts and athletic departments need specific information to ensure compliance with district policies. Even more important, this information may be used to ensure student safety throughout the day, on trips, and in extracurricular activities. The problem is: Parents are busy and might not realize just how easy it is to complete online forms.

We’re here to help!

We believe there are 3 steps to 100% form completion:

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The FinalForms Scholarship, awarded by WSSAAA, provides financial assistance to first-year athletic administrators for the WSSAAA Annual Conference. FinalForms puts forth funds to allow WSSAAA to select 5 athletic administrators attend the conference or participate in NIAAA leadership training courses.

“We consider it an honor to provide the scholarship. FinalForms’ core values revolve around improving education-based athletics,” states Steve Frucci, “By helping these ADs gain education and exposure to best practices, we’re helping to raise the bar.”

“As a first-year Athletic Director, I have been seeking different opportunities to gain Professional Development experiences. The WSSAAA Conference is just one great way for me to learn and make important contacts and connections,” says last year’s recipient Kristin DiJosie of Lakewood High School, “As a result of earning this scholarship, I was able to enroll in a leadership course that counts for credit toward my Certified Athletic Administrator credentials.”

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The Quisenberry Service Award, awarded by the Ohio Senate, recognizes special contributions, leadership and service to interscholastic athletics in Ohio as well as the local and state level. It is presented to an individual from outside the profession of athletic administration who has made powerful improvements and offered quality service to interscholastic athletes.

“It’s truly fulfilling to receive the honor. The recognition of FinalForms’ impact on education-based athletics is an unprecedented distinction for our team, product and service,” claims Burnett, “Our commitment to school district compliance and student safety, as well as the integrity of our staff supports our offering, which drives industry standards in education technology.”

Burnett has led the explosive growth of FinalForms while setting new industry standards, annually doubling revenues, and maintaining a flawless client retention record. Today he's fulfilling his vision of building a team, designing a product, and providing a service that dramatically improves both education and athletics.

“You have striven to better the world around you, and your intuitiveness and integrity has earned you the esteem of all who know you. We are certain that you will continue to put forth the same unwavering commitment to excellence for which you have become known, and your accomplishments will encourage your fellow citizens to join together and enact improvement not only for our state’s prosperity but also for the advancement of tomorrow’s leaders,” wrote Senator Larry Obhof, President of the Ohio Senate.

Burnett accepted the award at the Northeast Ohio Interscholastic Athletic Administration Association awards banquet in April.

Photo: Left: Clay Burnett; Right: Kevin Leigh, Athletic Director, Padua Franciscan High School.

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Security and compliance are shared responsibilities between AWS, FinalForms, and the School District (Customer). This model helps relieve FinalForms’ operational burden as AWS operates, manages and controls the components from the host operating system and virtualization layer down to the physical security of the facilities in which the service operates. In turn, FinalForms has responsibility and management of the operating system (including updates and security patches), other associated application software as well as the configuration of the AWS provided security group firewall. As shown in the chart below, this differentiation of responsibility is commonly referred to as Security “of” the Cloud versus Security “in” the Cloud. FinalForms carefully considers the services provisioned as responsibilities vary depending on the nature of the services, the integration of those services into the IT environment, and applicable laws and regulations. The Shared Responsibility Model is designed to provide FinalForms with flexibility and control over technology and the School District with flexibility and control over authorized user access.

There is no FERPA certification for a service provider such as FinalForms. In order to meet the FERPA requirements applicable to our operating model, FinalForms aligns our FERPA risk management program, detailed below. 

For more on this subject, please visit: https://d0.awsstatic.com/whitepapers/compliance/AWS_FERPA_Whitepaper.pdf

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The FinalForms–ProgressBook certification and integration processes are 100% complete meaning school districts throughout Ohio can now integrate two of their most crucial applications: FinalForms and ProgressBook. The integration connects FinalForms’ premier data collection, verification, and distribution system with Software Answers’ robust ProgressBook Student Information System (SIS).

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