Waukee APEX — Two Tools, Two Asks

June 1, 2026  ·  Kim Tierney  ·  Shane Scott  ·  Lexi Shafer  ·  Kathleen Sender  ·  Russ Goerend

District Support Request
The story behind this
"Anne mentioned she'd connected me with someone new at WesleyLife. We've worked with WesleyLife for years — lots of projects across multiple courses. But I'd never worked with this specific person. How great would it be to instantly pull up a summary of our entire relationship with that company, so I can walk into that conversation informed?"

That's what the BPRM does. A partner relationship system built from the ground up for how APEX actually operates — at a fraction of the cost of something like Salesforce, and built around the way we already communicate.

1

Business Partner Relationship Manager (BPRM)

A new tool for tracking APEX's industry partner relationships

What it is

A lightweight system that lets instructors log interactions with APEX's business partners — project updates, check-ins, relationship health — directly from Slack. AI processes those notes and stores them in a shared Google Sheet the whole team can reference.

Who it's for

  • Currently building and testing with pseudo data
  • APEX instructors and Lexi are eagerly awaiting the go-ahead to start using it this summer
  • Long-term vision: make business partner relationships more informed and efficient across APEX — and potentially K–12 more broadly

How it works — from Slack

Slack (input) Make.com (automation) Anthropic Claude AI (processing) Google Sheets (storage)
# bprm-log
R
Russ Today at 3:47 PM
Update wesleylife: Anne connected me with a new contact, Mark. WesleyLife hasn't been active since the spring ESS project. Good energy — he wants to explore a fall DCS project.
🤖
BPRM Today at 3:47 PM
Logged ✓  ·  wesleylife · Meeting · May 21
Sentiment: Positive  ·  Follow-up needed: Yes
New contact Mark logged. Reconnection after a quiet stretch — fall DCS project on the table.
R
Russ Today at 3:48 PM
Summary wesleylife
🤖
BPRM Today at 3:48 PM
PARTNER ONE-PAGER — WesleyLife
As of May 21, 2026

Who they are
Healthcare/senior living organization in the Des Moines metro. Long-standing APEX partner across multiple courses and semesters. Contacts on file across ESS, DCS, and BSU.

Vibe — Steady
Strong track record. Spring ESS project wrapped successfully. Recent re-introduction via Anne Boesen; new contact Mark shows interest in a fall DCS project. Relationship is warm — good time for a follow-up.

Plain-English message in → structured record out. No forms, no fields.

What data flows through third-party services: Only business partner information — company names, contact names, project notes, and interaction logs. No student names, no grades, no student PII of any kind passes through Make.com or Anthropic.

Why district approval is needed

Make.com and Anthropic are third-party cloud services. Even though this is only business partner data, district policy likely requires Data Processing Agreements (DPAs) before that data flows through external platforms — the same kind of agreement the district has with Google, Canvas, Slack, etc.

What we're asking for

1
District go-ahead to proceed Before rolling this out beyond the testing phase, APEX wants to make sure it has district support. Lexi is ready to start using it this summer — we just need the green light.
2
Direction on the DPA process Whoever in the district reviews third-party data processors — IT, legal, purchasing — we need to get Make.com and Anthropic in front of them. A pointer to the right person is all we need.
continuing
2

APEX Portfolio v2

A digital professional portfolio for all 17 APEX courses — launching fall 2026–27

What it is

A web-based portfolio where student-associates track their progress through all five APEX Standards, log their work artifacts, and build a career-spanning professional record. Student-associates sign in with their school Google account — no separate logins.

Who it's for

  • Opt-in group of instructors launching it this fall
  • Feedback from student-associates and instructors throughout the fall semester
  • Target: all courses once instructors are ready

Where things stand

  • Core system is built and working — sign-in, dashboard, all 5 standards, check-ins
  • Instructor dashboard (course progress, heatmaps) is in place
  • Sharing with colleagues this week so they can configure it for their courses
  • One feature left: Google Drive file upload so student-associates can attach real work artifacts

What a student-associate sees

dashboard.dwtapex.com/v2/Standard1.html
Dashboard Portfolio ▾ 📋 Check-In Alex Chen
Standard 1: Servant Leadership & Client Relationships
Documenting professional growth, client communication, and community impact.
🤲 Servant Leadership
🙋 Volunteering for a Project
Evidence of stepping up to assist a peer or support a team goal.
Done
📝 Constructive Peer Review
Actionable, kind, and specific feedback on a teammate's work.
In Progress
🌱 Onboarding a New Associate
Help a new team member find their footing in APEX.
Not Started
🤝 Client Relationships
📧 Professional Email to Client
Email with clear subject, 5 Ws and H, and specific next steps.
Done
📅 Google Calendar Event
Evidence of professional scheduling with all guests invited.
Done
📋 The Pre-Meeting Brief
Arrived at a client meeting prepared — agenda sent in advance.
In Progress
👥 Team Building
🗣️ Leading the Stand-Up
Evidence of leading a daily scrum or team meeting.
Done
📊 Kanban Board Champion
Maintaining a Trello or Slack Canvas task list.
Not Started
🔥 Navigating a Team Disagreement
Document a moment when your team had a real disagreement.
Not Started

Each artifact card links to a real piece of work. Progress tracks per strand. Everything saves automatically to the student-associate's account.

The one hurdle that requires district IT support: The Drive upload feature requires a Google Cloud project registered under the waukeeschools.org domain. The existing Cloud project had to be set up under a personal Gmail account because Waukee Schools accounts don't have permission to create Cloud projects. That works for everything built so far — but adding Drive access requires the project to live under the school domain, otherwise Google's approval process becomes significantly more complicated and slow.

What we're asking for

1
Connect us with the right IT contact We need someone in IT who can create a Google Cloud project under waukeeschools.org — or grant a school account permission to do it. It's a one-time setup, not ongoing IT work.
2
Advocate for the request District-level advocacy moves requests like this much faster than a program-level ask. The goal is an answer before fall — not after students have already started.
3
Awareness before fall launch No surprises when this goes live in August. Student-associates across all 17 courses will be signing in with their school Google accounts from day one.

Waukee APEX  ·  Questions? Russ Goerend  ·  rgoerend@waukeeschools.org  ·  Studio The Hue #111