How Riverview Gardens School District cut agenda creation from 3 hours to 10 minutes

Riverview Gardens School District is a public school district in St. Louis, Missouri. Sha Fields, Coordinator of Board Governance, has worked in the district for 25 years and has held her current role for 20 years. She supports the Board of Education, helps ensure governance policies and procedures are followed and manages responsibilities that include records management and Sunshine Law requests.

After more than a decade using BoardDocs, Riverview Gardens moved to Diligent Community in 2024. The district needed a more flexible way to manage agendas, approvals, meeting materials and public access to governance information.

The challenge: When board administration takes time away from broader governance work

Before moving to digital board management, Riverview Gardens relied on a paper-heavy process. Agenda preparation took hours and depended on coordination across multiple contributors. BoardDocs helped the district move away from paper, but over time Fields needed more flexibility than the platform could provide.

Approval workflows were another challenge. If someone needed to be added or removed after an agenda item had already been created, the process was harder to adjust. For a district preparing agendas multiple times each month across different committees and meeting groups, that lack of flexibility created extra work.

"It was important for me to switch from BoardDocs to Diligent Community because I was missing the ability to add certain attachments and link documents."
— Sha Fields, Coordinator of Board Governance, Riverview Gardens School District

Fields became the district's BoardDocs expert, with peers across Missouri turning to her for advice and guidance. Considering a move to a new system was not a decision she took lightly. But as her responsibilities for board administration, public transparency, records management and Sunshine Law requests grew, so did her need for a more efficient, modern way to manage them.

The solution: A more flexible way to manage board governance

Riverview Gardens has significantly reduced the time spent managing agendas and approvals while making governance information easier for stakeholders to access. Today, the district uses Diligent Community to support its governance workflow:

• Meeting templates: Helps create agendas in 10 minutes instead of three hours, including for multiple committees and meeting groups.
• Flexible approval workflows: Allows people to be added or removed after an agenda item has been created, helping keep approvals moving when someone is unavailable.
• Notifications and mobile access: Lets users know when materials need their attention and gives Fields the flexibility to review, approve or reject items from her mobile device.
• Public transparency site: Gives community members access to past and upcoming meetings, searchable information and subscription options for future meeting notifications.

Together, these capabilities help the district spend less time managing administrative processes and more time supporting governance, records management and community transparency.

"The ability to use meeting templates has been a game changer, especially because we use the platform for multiple committees within our organisation."
— Sha Fields, Coordinator of Board Governance, Riverview Gardens School District

The results: More time for governance, records and transparency

For Riverview Gardens, the most immediate impact has been time savings. Agenda creation has dropped from approximately two to three hours to just 10-15 minutes, while monthly minutes preparation has been shortened by at least a day.

Those efficiencies have given Fields more flexibility in how she manages her workload. Unlike BoardDocs, which wasn't mobile-friendly, Diligent Community allows her to approve items and keep time-sensitive board business moving from her phone. She experienced that flexibility firsthand while attending a conference, where she could continue advancing items without being tied to her desk.

The transition has also created a more consistent approach across the district's different meeting groups while maintaining centralised oversight. For the public, governance information is easier to find and access, helping the district strengthen transparency and keep its community informed.

For Fields, who had years of experience with BoardDocs, the shift ultimately proved worthwhile. After becoming comfortable with Diligent Community, she now encourages other BoardDocs users considering the move not to wait.

"If anyone is considering migrating from BoardDocs to Diligent Community, don't wait; just go ahead and make the change."
— Sha Fields, Coordinator of Board Governance, Riverview Gardens School District

Results at a glance

• Agenda creation cut from three hours to 10 minutes
• Minutes preparation reduced by at least a day
• More flexible approval workflows across meeting groups and committees
• Mobile access for reviewing, approving and rejecting agenda items
• Improved public access to meeting information, subscriptions and livestreams

Want to see how it all came together?

Download the case study to discover how Riverview Gardens School District used Diligent Community to cut agenda creation from hours to minutes, simplify approval workflows and give its community easier access to governance information.