New app offers wider options for parents paying for school fees and activities

A new app, Skookii, has been developed in the US that allows parents to make payments for all school fees and purchases, including aftercare, lunch, and fieldtrip costs, using a one-click mobile platform. For parents, it offers convenience; for schools, it cuts down on expensive admin costs, increases efficiency and revenue and provides complete reporting visibility.

Exploring What Parents Want: To Pay School Fees Via School Office or a Mobile App

Ninety-four percent of K-12 schools do not offer mobile payment capability to collect activity or aftercare fees. Ask any parent and they’ll tell you the same thing: paying for the countless number of athletics, aftercare, lunch, classroom supplies, donations, fieldtrips, and other school-related fees is extremely difficult to keep up with. Now add in multiple kids at different schools with different payment procedures and systems and the process gets downright impossible.

“As a millennial parent I was frustrated sending cash with my son to pay for field trips, having to physically go into the front office to pay for lunches, and paying over the phone for after-school care and extracurricular activities,” said Alisher Rakhimov, CEO of SKOOKii, the company he cofounded to make one-click payments possible for busy parents regardless of the school.

Millennials make up the largest K-12 school parents population, however majority of those schools are still using manual and outdated paper-driven procedures to collect school-related activity fees. According to National Center for Education Statistics, per student expenses for both schools and parents has been increasing dramatically over the last decade. Additionally, due to state budget-cut, more schools are outsourcing previously subsidized fees to Parents. Lack of mobile payment capability, lost or stolen funds, and un-collected funds from parents are all reasons why schools are missing greatly on the local revenue they desperately need.

Mark Goodman, the Superintendent of the St. David Unified School District in Arizona was one of the early adopters of this free and secure payment app. “St. David is a family centered community in rural Arizona. The community loves and supports their school. For several years we looked for an affordable method to allow parents to make payments for all school fees and purchases using mobile technology. As a District we were thrilled to partner with Skookii and provide convenient and economical method for our parents handle their school fees. As a father of four students I now use this amazing free platform to handle all of my children’s school payments even though I am on campus every day.”

Ask any school business manager who still uses manual or excel-driven process for accounts receivables and they will tell you lots of stories of trying to track and collect unpaid aftercare fees; trying to reconcile monthly lunch payments; or trying to find out which student does a deposited check belongs to. To this day, majority of public, private, and charter schools still spend too much time and effort with outdated procedures to accomplish rudimentary tasks in the back-office. It doesn’t help when legacy solutions do not innovate or provide truly affordable and simple technology that does not require thick manuals or expensive trainings to implement and utilize.

Providing 1-tap mobile payment solution such as SKOOKii is a win-win for both: parents who are used to hassle-free mobile convenience and school business officers who want complete reporting visibility and direct deposit of funds.

The preceding is a sponsored post provided by SKOOKii. Contact Education World directly to inquire about sponsored post opportunities for your business.