Jackie, Executive Director of the Park District of Forest Park, Illinois, has seen a good recreation software switch from two different seats, as the leader who evaluated the software and as a parent who used it herself at another park district first.
She joined the Parks & Tech Collective show to talk about what changed for her team at Forest Park, from everyday registration to one of the most difficult days her staff has faced.
You missed Jackie's episode?
Before Amilia, Forest Park's team was managing a back end they could barely operate themselves. "It was taking families endless clicks just to sign up for a dance program," Jackie said, and that's a lot to ask of a parent fitting registration in between work and pickup.
She'd already seen the alternative first-hand. As a parent registering her own daughter at a different park district running Amilia, "it was two clicks, and my daughter was in a program," she said. That front-end experience, and the customer service behind it, is what led Forest Park to make the switch when she became executive director. Read more about Amilia's Online Registration here.
The easier front end didn't just move more people through registration. It moved staff off of registration.
"It hasn't necessarily reduced our staff, but we've had opportunities for our staff to do more in other areas," Jackie said. The clearest example: camp sign-up day, once one of the most stressful mornings of the year for her front desk.
That first day of camp registration used to be crazy here. Now we get three or four phone calls total, because everybody's already registered, sometimes at midnight, whenever they found the time.Jackie Iovinelli, CPRP, Park District of Forest Park
Asked how she keeps up with a technology landscape that shifts constantly, Jackie's answer wasn't a framework. "I listen," she said. New ideas, like the system Amilia's team built to handle photo updates on pool passes, usually start with a frontline staff member who's living the problem. Her job, as she describes it, is less about dictating solutions and more about clearing the way for the ones her team already knows will work.
That same instinct carried her through Forest Park's hardest day: have the systems and the communication in place before you need them, so that when something unexpected happens, staff and families both know exactly what to do next.
Thank you Jackie for this excellent conversation on the Parks and Tech Collective Podcast!
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