The Challenge

Fort Lee School District serves a densely populated community in Bergen County, New Jersey:  eight buildings, hundreds of staff, and a central office responsible for coordinating everything from daily maintenance requests to field trip approvals to facility rentals to IT support.

Like most districts its size, Fort Lee had accumulated a collection of tools over the years. Maintenance ran on one system. IT tracked requests through another. Business operations lived in Google Sheets. Field trips moved through paper approval chains. Facility rentals were managed manually.

The result was a district that functioned, but at a cost. Requests fell through the cracks between systems. Administrators had no single view of what was open, in progress, or overdue. Budget visibility required reconciling data from multiple sources. Staff spent significant time on coordination that should have been automatic.

“Most school districts are drowning in inefficiency. Our maintenance team used one system, IT had another, and our business office tracked everything in spreadsheets. The lack of visibility was costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars annually - not to mention the toll on staff morale.”

Dr. Robert Krawtz, Superintendent, Fort Lee School District

The Solution

Fort Lee District evaluated Intelocate as a replacement for its fragmented operations stack. The platform consolidates facilities work orders, IT helpdesk, field trip management, facility rentals, compliance tracking, asset management, and cross-department communications into a single system.

The decision was driven by one core requirement: every department (maintenance, IT, administration, and the business office), all needed to operate from the same platform, with shared visibility and without the overhead of managing multiple vendor relationships.

Implementation was completed in under two months. All eight buildings were onboarded simultaneously. Staff training was completed without external consultants.

The Results

60% Reduction in Operational Response Times

With all requests flowing through a single system, work orders reach the right team immediately. Automated routing eliminates the manual triage that previously added hours or days to every request. Maintenance supervisors no longer coordinate by phone: they see their full workload in real time and assign jobs with two clicks.

65% Reduction in Annual Software Costs

Consolidating multiple platforms into one eliminated redundant licensing fees across departments. The district now pays a single vendor for capabilities that previously required separate contracts across facilities, IT, and operations management.

Complete Operational Visibility

Administrators and the superintendent now have a real-time dashboard showing every open request across all eight buildings: who submitted it, who it is assigned to, its current status, and its associated cost. Board reporting that previously required manual data compilation is now generated automatically.

Field Trips and Facility Rentals on One System

Field trip approvals that once moved through paper signature chains now route digitally through the relevant administrators with automatic parent notifications. Facility rentals are booked, approved, and invoiced within the same platform, creating a new revenue stream from previously underutilized spaces.

“With this product we cut operational response times by 60% and reduced administrative overhead, as well as saved 65% on annual software costs. But the real victory? Our teachers can finally focus on teaching instead of chasing approvals.”

Dr. Robert Krawtz, Superintendent, Fort Lee School District

What Changed

Before Intelocate, Fort Lee School District's operational model looked like most districts its size: functional but fragmented. After implementation, the district moved from reactive to proactive, maintenance issues addressed before they escalate, compliance deadlines tracked automatically, and budget data available in real time rather than at month end.

The shift required no new hires and no change in district headcount. The efficiency gains came entirely from removing the coordination overhead that fragmented systems create.