How The Weston School Plans to Expand from 5 to 20 Locations
The Weston School found a software business partner that turned mountains of paperwork into hours of playtime.
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The Weston School's approach to a 15-location expansion
Company
The Weston School is a family-owned network of early childhood education centers in Indiana, providing a warm, engaging environment where children build foundational skills through play-based learning and individualized attention.
Size
5 Locations
Key features used
At The Weston School, caring for kids has always come first. But behind the scenes, staff were drowning in billing spreadsheets, enrollment paperwork, and phone calls for simple parent requests. Then they switched to Playground — and everything changed.
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Running 5+ centers meant 5x the admin
Before Playground, billing was a grind. Charges had to be entered child by child, payments checked account by account, and declined transactions spotted manually.
Enrollment was just as heavy. Hannah, who manages enrollments, had to copy the same family data into multiple systems, print it, scan it, and send it to each center.
And it wasn’t just hard on staff. Parents also felt the friction. Paperwork was long, payment was over the phone, and even small updates like adding a pickup person meant calling the office.
The entire team agreed — too much time was going into manual, repetitive work, and not enough into what mattered most: caring for kids.
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The Weston School switched to Playground & manual work became automatic
The Weston School switched to Playground, an all-in-one childcare management platform, to run billing, enrollment, parent communication, and operations in one place.
The transition was smoother than anyone expected.
“The team at Playground was there every step of the way,” Kristen said. “It’s user-friendly, easy to navigate, and the chat support is super quick.”
Billing charges could now be added in bulk to multiple children in seconds. Payments ran automatically each week, with instant alerts for any declined transactions.
Enrollment transformed, allowing parents to fill out all forms online, pay waitlist fees instantly, and upload documents like birth certificates directly from their phone. No more printing, scanning, or chasing missing items on either side.
“Across all locations, we’re saving 30 hours a month just on tasks parents can now do themselves. That’s time we get back for what really matters.”
The Playground app also put control back into parents’ hands. They could add or remove pickup assignees, update payment info, download statements, and get live updates about their child’s day. As Julie said,
“Parents are more autonomous, we’re more efficient, and everyone’s happier.”
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Less time behind screens; more time with the kids
1. Huge Time Savings: families can now self-manage info and documents, saving ~30 hours per month across all locations that staff used to spend on tasks that Playground does automatically.
2. Speedy Enrollment: Hannah now saves 5–10 hours per week on enrollment admin. Each family’s onboarding is about 1 hour faster than before.
3. Automatic Billing: bulk billing and automatic payment processing removed daily manual checks and reduced billing setup from hours to a few clicks.
Start making your families and staff happier
Say goodbye to juggling several platforms and streamline operations with Playground
