de Toledo High School Streamlines Event Management
de Toledo High School in Los Angeles, California is home to 400 students plus 127 faculty and staff. Founded in 2002 with just 40 students, the school grew exponentially over the following decade while still maintaining a close student to teacher ratio. With a well-rounded curriculum that includes STEM, the arts, championship student athletics and global exchange programs, de Toledo is a widely recognized and respected private school.
David Marcus, de Toledo’s business manager, first joined the high school in 2006 after five years as a founding board member. When the school began to construct its new campus in 2012 – which spans six acres and includes 100,000 sq. ft. of classroom space – David’s role quickly grew to include much more.
One of the biggest initial challenges David faced with the new campus was the management of their facilities rental program. In addition to student events, the school hosts about 3000+ events and works with over 64 outside organizations including, a swim academy, youth sports programs and more. Previously, the school had used a paper system for scheduling these events, which David describes as “clunky” and ineffective.
Relying on administrative assistants to write down scheduled events on calendars didn’t capture the full scope of event management, and they had difficulty determining available space. David chose Brightly's event management system to help them streamline event management with an electronic process and to also keep track of everything from set-up/ cleanup to supplies to calendars. With a paperless solution, de Toledo gained control over the thousands of events they host throughout the year and eliminated double bookings, raising the school’s profile as a steward in the community.
But with a higher volume of people coming and going from the property outside of school hours, concerns were raised about security. Working with a team of safety consultants, de Toledo created a new robust safety program, including a visitor ID program, lockdown procedures, access control badge entry for students and faculty, and much more. Combined with their new event management system, they’re now able to track who is on campus, where they are and how long they will be there.
With the new solution in place, David also wanted to ensure that he was a good steward for the campus. The school’s Finance Committee wanted a long-term strategic plan on deferred maintenance, and recently completed a facility audit with a Brightly partner which reviewed the entire campus. The audit looked at the current condition of the school and the longevity of vital assets, including HVAC units, paint, carpeting, parking lots, electrical, safety systems and much more. With this audit, they created a detailed review of their preventive maintenance system and began tracking everything with Brightly Capital Forecasting.
I appreciate, and actually was amazed at, the thorough job that [Brightly’s partner] Building Solutions did during this process.
“I’m looking forward to the final report and utilizing Brightly Capital Forecasting,” David said.
