About Conestoga Valley School District

Conestoga Valley School District in central Pennsylvania serves over 4,000 students and relies on 450 staff members. The technology team, guided by Director of Instructional Technology, Adam McGraw, and SIS & Data Integration Specialist, Steph Joniec, doesn’t just maintain systems; they enable thousands of people to use those systems more effectively every day.

After stepping in during a period of transition, they were looking for a better way to train staff, support families, and share clear, consistent instructions, especially for families who speak a variety of non-English languages and have limited technical experience.

That’s where Trails came in.

The Challenge

When Adam and Steph joined Conestoga Valley, a new Student Information System rollout was happening and they faced a few challenges:

The rollout introduced new and unfamiliar processes to both staff and parents

There was no consistent library of guides or training materials.

Previous efforts at documentation relied on Google Docs with screenshots and long explanations that were slow and tedious to produce.

The district serves families who speak a variety of languages, making language access a major concern.

A lot of parents use their phones to access information, making it harder to reach them with training

Steph started looking for a better way to create and organize step-by-step guides. Many were too expensive, too tedious, or didn’t meet their needs.
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It’s a lot of work to screenshot every page, write descriptions, fix PDFs, and then redo everything when something changes. There had to be a better way.

Why Trails

After evaluating multiple tools, Trails stood out immediately.

• Combined video + step-by-step guide
  Many staff and families prefer watching a short video, while others want written steps. Trails delivers both in a single link.
  
  “For many learners, a short video is more effective than written steps. So, being able to show both the video and guide at the same time pushed me toward your solution.”
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• Better experience than static Google Docs
  In Trails, staff and families can easily zoom in on screenshots and watch the video and guide together in a clean, focused layout.
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• Translation for ESL families
  The team is working to provide resources in a variety of languages, and Trails helps make that practical at scale.
  
  “I remembered one of our secretaries can speak Spanish, so I sent her both an English video and Spanish video [made in Trails], and she said they both sounded great.”
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• Simplicity and reliability
  
  “I’m pretty jaded with tools, but Trails just worked. It might be the most excited I’ve been about a tech product in years.”
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• Competitive pricing & value vs Scribe
  Adam had used Scribe previously and shared Trails with his former team:
  
  “It’s similar to Scribe, but with extra features and a better value.”

only comes with text and screenshots

generates both video and guide

How They’re Using Trails

The technology team uses Trails in two ways:

• Internal staff training
  Teaching staff new processes and systems, standardizing how “how-tos” are created so they look and feel consistent, and keeping guides updated without re-sharing links every time content changes
• Family-facing guides
  Step-by-step guides with an accompanying video for parents, with added support for families who are both non-technical and non-native English speakers

Steph also tested Trails across all the platforms their community uses:

• Staff on Macs
• Students on iPads
• Parents on iPhones and Android phones

I loved that the shared Trail just opens as a clean webpage with the guide and no extra clutter. It worked smoothly on every device we tried.

Impact So Far

After only a few weeks of using the tool, they saw positive impact:

• Faster guide creation compared to manual Google Docs with screenshots and separate videos.
• Stronger support for ESL families as all documentation is offered in multiple languages.
• Better long-term maintainability since Trails lets them update content without re-sharing links.
• Higher engagement: a staff member who almost never responds to district communications wrote back with positive feedback on a guide created in Trails.

Looking Ahead

Conestoga Valley’s tech team already sees opportunities to expand Trails beyond their department:

• Human resources and other departments creating their own guides
• Potential use as a district-wide standard for “how-to” content
• Using content to create a knowledge base to serve as a comprehensive source of truth