From Stacks of Spreadsheets to Time for More Student Support: How Delaware State University (DSU) Transformed Clinical Placements
20-30 Hours/wk
Time spent by one staff member on placement spreadsheets, for several weeks each semester (before Equate Ed)
150+ Students
Number of students placed each semester across 19 partner school districts
240+ Total Users
Including the 95 active mentor profiles (today)
Every semester, placing student teachers used to mean starting over from scratch. At the Office of Clinical Practice and Partnerships, led by Dr. Crystal Timmons, the team manages relationships across 19 partner school districts and finds placements for over 150 students with both education and pre-education majors each semester. In the past, April Daigrepont would download an enrollment report from Banner and build a master spreadsheet, one line per student, per course. From there, a second staff member reviewed the placement requirements from each course and worked in a separate placement spreadsheet, ultimately sharing a section with each partner district for mentor matching.
When it came time to place a returning upperclassman, staff had to dig back through old spreadsheets just to reconstruct where that student had been placed before. The accuracy of this information depended on staff memory and their ability to search through old files.
April estimated that this process, downloading and reviewing Banner reports, building and updating placement spreadsheets, and creating unduplicated placement lists, took her personally 20 to 30 hours per week for several weeks each semester. That figure doesn't include the separate time other staff spent maintaining their own individual tracking.
Today, DSU manages the full process in Equate, with over 240 users including 95 active mentor profiles.
A direct Banner integration pulls student majors, contact and emergency contact information, and course enrollment automatically, refreshing every day at 4 a.m. New candidates who've just enrolled in courses requiring a placement are automatically invited into the system; withdrawn students are flagged in real time. That means the Office of Clinical Practice and Partnerships knows, every morning, exactly who needs a placement and what type, without pulling a single manual report.
Every student profile now carries a complete placement history: where they've been, what grade level, what subject area, so there's no more searching through old spreadsheets to place a returning student. Clearance status is tracked automatically and flagged the moment it falls out of compliance with Delaware and district requirements. The system also tracks mentors' progress, who they've served and who completed this year's required training, so staff can match candidates to trained mentors directly, without cross-referencing a separate list.
For Dr. Timmons, the change has been felt at a different level entirely:
"Our placement process had been antiquated for years, and I had this dream board full of 'what ifs.' What if we could make placements easier? What if we could cut down on all the emails, paperwork, and time it took to manage the process? Working with Equate helped turn those 'what ifs' into reality.
Their team really listened to what we needed. They took my ideas, even the small ones, and built a platform that works for our teacher education program. Our workflow is much more efficient, we're saving valuable time, and the placement process is easier to manage from beginning to end.
For me, the biggest difference is that we're spending less time managing the process and more time focusing on what really matters: supporting our preservice teachers."
— Dr. Crystal Timmons, Director, Office of Clinical Practice and Partnerships
Candidates contribute to the process too. Once in the platform, they complete a transportation and district-preference survey, so staff are, as one team member put it, "in the know" when coordinating placements. Custom reports turn that preference data into district-ready lists for mentor matching, replacing what used to be a manual, spreadsheet-built process.
Placement communication has changed as well. Letters used to follow a batch rhythm: wait until every placement for the semester was finalized, then generate and send all letters at once. Now, as soon as an individual placement is entered and reviewed, a simple checkbox triggers the letter, one to the student, one to the mentor, with placement details filled in automatically. No one waits on the full roster to be locked before getting their assignment.
Candidates have also embraced owning their own profiles, personalizing them with prompts like What's my why?, communication and support preferences, and short- and long-term goals. Staff have seen candidates take real initiative here: one recently completed every section of her profile entirely on her own, without prompting, giving the team a fuller picture of her before she ever set foot in a classroom.
Reflecting on the shift, April Daigrepont said:
"I'm definitely still getting used to the new process, but not having to constantly scroll through spreadsheets, search for students, and keep up with unduplicated-specific lists is going to make a big difference in my day-to-day workload."
— April Daigrepont, Office of Clinical Practice and Partnerships
For the Office of Clinical Practice and Partnerships, the shift away from spreadsheets hasn't just saved time. It's given staff a clearer, real-time picture of every candidate's journey, from enrollment through clearance to placement, without the manual reconciliation that used to eat up weeks each semester.
As one of the first EPPs to bring their full placement workflow into Equate, DSU's experience reflects what's possible when a system is built specifically for the way educator preparation programs actually work.
If your placement process looks more like DSU's "before" than their "after," let’s spend a few minutes to see if we can help.