Touchpoint K12

The Opportunity: Helping Schools Get Smarter

In K–12 education, teachers, administrators, and support staff are stretched thin, and resources are often limited. Administrative processes like time and attendance tracking can take valuable time and budget away from helping students succeed.

Founded in 2015, Pennsylvania-based Touchpoint K12 set out to support school district IT and HR teams with advanced people management systems. Today, Touchpoint’s solutions are deployed across the United States, providing simple, reliable, and affordable time tracking for everyone from teachers and administrators to maintenance and support staff.

Touchpoint’s contactless time clocks, self-operating kiosks, and plug-and-play DIY kits simplify accurate timekeeping, reduce the administrative burden, and help schools meet compliance requirements with state-level guidelines.

“Our device is always working, with staff clocking in and out 24/7,” says Seth Hartman, Director of Operations and Facilities at Touchpoint K12. “When school staff use it, they know it’s going to work.”

"With the telco, I had to constantly be in communication with our rep to shut down, purchase, or manage lines. I pull the reports I need to see usage, billing, and spreadsheets of the data, which I didn’t even know was possible until we switched."

Seth Hartman

Director of Operations and Facilities

Touchpoint K12

The Solution: Time Tracking Made Simpler, Safer, and More Secure

Touchpoint K12 offers a flexible mix of connected hardware options so districts can tailor solutions to their unique needs. Schools can choose from four fully connected product lines, each designed for a specific use case and backed by ongoing support:

• DIY: Uses existing computers with an RFiD proximity scanner and barcode reader to work with existing staff badges.
• Tablet: A secure proprietary tablet with optional kiosk and badge scanner.
• Timeclock: Touchless, plug-and-play units that integrate with existing badge systems.
• Safe-T-Screen: Kiosks with thermal scanning to collect HIPAA-compliant health data and help reduce the spread of illness.

Hartman and his team design each device for a seven-to-ten-year service life, sourcing components that deliver both reliability and value. LTE connectivity is built in as a backup for locations where Wi-Fi is unavailable or blocked by district IT policy—ensuring devices remain operational no matter the environment.

Why Soracom: Affordable Service, Granular Control

Previously, Touchpoint K12 relied on one of the “big three” U.S. carriers, but high per-line costs and limited backend management tools made scaling difficult.

“We paid so much for the SIM and then had to pay more for the data,” says Hartman. “It just wasn’t designed for a business like ours, with so many separate customers using individual lines in the field.”

Switching to Soracom brought not just cost savings, but also powerful IoT-focused management tools. Using the Soracom User Console, the Touchpoint team can monitor usage, manage lines, pull detailed reports, and even lock SIMs to specific devices for added security with IMEI Lock – a key advantage in school environments where devices may be tampered with.

More recently, Touchpoint K12 has adopted the Soracom Onyx LTE dongle to bring simple, plug-and-play cellular connectivity to its time tracking devices.

The Outcome: Trusted Partnerships With Schools

Touchpoint’s commitment to quality has earned the trust of IT teams and school administrators across the country, creating a feedback loop that fuels ongoing product improvements.

“Our ideas come directly from requests that schools share with us,” Hartman explains. “There’s one IT specialist for every 1,000 staff members. It’s very hard for them to manage everything the kids and teachers need. We think of ourselves as an outsourced IT department.”

Looking ahead, Touchpoint is working on new capabilities to support emergency evacuations, assess staff exposure to illnesses, and create solutions that help students directly—all while maintaining the reliability and security that customers depend on.