Customer Stories
St. Margaret's Episcopal School
St. Margaret’s Episcopal School streamlined board governance with OnBoard, saving time, improving security, and empowering trustees to be more effective.
Customer Stories
St. Margaret’s Episcopal School streamlined board governance with OnBoard, saving time, improving security, and empowering trustees to be more effective.
Industry: Education
Location: San Juan Capistrano, California
Board Management Goals
Results
OnBoard Capabilities Utilized
Founded in 1979, St. Margaret’s Episcopal School has grown into one of the nation’s premier independent schools, located on a 26-acre campus in San Juan Capistrano, California. With 1,234 students enrolled from preschool through grade 12, the school provides a full academic journey that blends rigorous academics with a commitment to nurturing the whole child.
As an Episcopal institution, the school’s mission is to educate the hearts and minds of young people for lives of learning, leadership, and service. This guiding purpose informs every decision its leaders make.
Head of School Dr. Jeneen Graham describes St. Margaret’s as a deeply intentional community. “Our mission really drives all our actions and behaviors,” she says. “We’re thoughtful about what we put into place.”
The school embraces five core values (balance and breadth, character, community, high expectations, and equity and inclusion) that shape the student experience and its governance model. St. Margaret’s is also one of the largest employers in San Juan Capistrano, with more than 350 full- and part-time professional community members supporting academics, athletics, and arts.
The student experience is divided into four divisions (early school, lower school, middle school, and upper school) all housed on distinct parts of campus. With small student-to-teacher ratios and outstanding faculty, St. Margaret’s has become known for excellence in academics, arts, and athletics.
“It’s really a whole-child school,” Jeneen says. “Our professional community is just extraordinary.”
For years, the Board of Trustees at St. Margaret’s relied on a patchwork system of emails, PDFs, and even mailed packets to manage its six annual meetings and 11 committees. Chief of Staff Claire Frahm, who has supported the board for more than two decades, remembers the inefficiencies vividly.
“When I was first here, we were actually sending more packets out in the mail, which is just crazy,” she says. “More recently, I would combine all our documents into a 50-to-70-page PDF and send it to trustees by email.”
The process was cumbersome and frustrating for board members. Large email attachments sometimes failed, and updates or late addenda had to be sent separately. Trustees often struggled to locate past materials, forcing them to email Claire directly with requests to resend documents.
“There was not a central location. Now in OnBoard, everything is archived,” Claire says. “We never had a place where they could go to look at bylaws, policies, or resolutions. That was a huge change for us.”
Jeneen echoed those concerns, particularly around confidentiality. “Security was very much on my mind,” she says. “The fact that there were so many emails flying around with really important documents that we wanted to keep confidential made me nervous.”
With 18 trustees, multiple administrators, and even non-trustees serving on committees, efficiency and security became pressing priorities. “We knew we needed to find a way to get this done,” Jeneen says.
When St. Margaret’s decided to adopt OnBoard, the leadership team approached the rollout carefully to ensure buy-in. Claire served as the architect of the process, learning the software in-depth so she could train others.
“We took a lot of time to make sure that they understood the platform when we were rolling this out,” Claire says. “Some of them are earlier adopters than others, but now everyone is very comfortable with how to navigate OnBoard.”
During the initial stages, the team ran a hybrid system. They continued to email documents while gradually introducing trustees to the platform. This allowed members to acclimate without pressure.
“We certainly didn’t want a revolt,” Jeneen says, laughing. “We wanted to make sure that people were excited. There was a willingness to dive into something brand new, and we wanted to give everyone a good experience.”
They delivered training in bite-sized pieces tailored to trustees’ busy schedules. They carefully segmented permissions to ensure security and prevent unnecessary clutter.
The board also benefited from OnBoard’s customer success team, with Claire noting the value of both live support and robust online resources. “It’s been a great rollout,” she said. “I can’t say enough. It’s been wonderful.”
Within a year, the board transitioned fully to the portal. As Jeneen pointed out, the timing also aligned with regular trustee turnover. “Now, as new people come in, it’s just what we do,” she says. “It’s not going to be, ‘I remember two years ago we did it differently.’ This is how we do things.”
— Jeneen Graham, Head of School, St. Margaret's Episcopal School
— Claire Frahm, Chief of Staff, St. Margaret's Episcopal School
OnBoard’s impact on the board’s operations has been profound. Claire estimates she now spends 30 to 40% less time preparing for meetings. The portal’s ability to dynamically build and update board books has eliminated the need for massive PDFs and last-minute emails.
“It has just been a complete game-changer for us,” Claire says. “The efficiency in terms of being able to have it all there, to build the agenda early, and to add materials as they come in … it’s 100% more efficient and timely.”
Trustees also appreciate the centralization of resources. “They just go right to the site,” Claire says. “They know where to go, they know what to find, and that has saved so much time.”
From rosters and calendars to bylaws and past minutes, everything is at their fingertips. Jeneen says the security of the platform is equally valuable. “In my role, I have the ultimate responsibility for the school,” she says. “Just knowing that things are safe and secure and can be found very efficiently, it feels really good.”
Board meetings themselves have become smoother. Trustees can easily access evolving agendas, review historical documents, and prepare on their own terms.
“I think the board is able to be their best selves because they can interface with it in a way that makes sense for them,” Jeneen says. “Whether they want to read the book as it’s evolving or look backward to prepare, they can do that without needing Claire’s help.”
For St. Margaret’s Episcopal School, board effectiveness directly supports its mission to educate the hearts and minds of students for lives of learning, leadership, and service. OnBoard strengthens this mission by giving trustees secure, centralized access to critical information, enabling them to focus on strategy rather than logistics.
“The efficiency and the security of the information—those are what I love most,” Jeneen says.
By saving staff up to 40% of its preparation time and simplifying trustee participation, OnBoard ensures governance keeps pace with the school’s high expectations.
“It’s like a library… everything is there for us,” Claire says.
With OnBoard embedded in its processes, St. Margaret’s envisions future boards inheriting a streamlined, mission-aligned system that strengthens decision-making for years to come.
“We’re not even a full year in,” Claire says. “There are so many things we’re still learning to use. But it’s a dream of ours to have something so efficient and robust. OnBoard has been a game-changer, really.”
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