Gesamtschule Hörstel: Organizing school work digitally with Stackfield

About the comprehensive school Harkenberg Gesamtschule Hörstel

The comprehensive school Harkenberg Gesamtschule Hörstel in the district of Steinfurt in the northern part of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, was founded in 2013 and has since successfully graduated several classes of high school seniors. With around 1,000 students, nearly 100 teachers, and additional educational and administrative staff, the school handles a considerable organizational workload every day. Today, Stackfield supports work processes in the school office and administration, helping to make everyday tasks more efficient.

Daniel Helming has been headmaster at Gesamtschule Hörstel since the school year 2024/25. Since the school was founded twelve years ago, he has been part of the teaching staff and knows the school in all its stages of development. His colleague Monika Müller has been in charge of didactics at the school for eight years. She also witnessed and helped shape the development of the school.

The initial situation

Before Stackfield was introduced at the comprehensive school, the use of digital tools was mainly limited to communcation with parents, students, and teachers. However, especially the coordination between school management, the school office, and other staff members involves a vast amount of organizational tasks every day that require a high degree of coordination. Without a suitable digital solution it, thus, became increasingly difficult for management to keep track of all processes. It was therefore decided to search specifically for a tool that would enable structured and effective digital collaboration at management level.

Why Stackfield?

For the school, data protection is a top priority and was one of the deal-breakers during the selection of suitable tools. During the evaluation phase, Mr. Helming was in close contact with the city administration of Hörstel and the responsible district data protection officer to ensure that the tools in question also comply with data protection regulations. Once it was clear that Stackfield had several ISO certifications and met the requirements of the GDPR, approval for use was promptly granted from the data protection perspective, which made the decision a lot easier.

Furthermore, from a functional perspective, Stackfield meets the school's key requirements. The school was looking for a solution that would allow tasks to stay documented and tracked in a transparent, structured, and comprehensible manner. School meetings in particular involve a large number of people, and tasks arise on a daily basis that urgently need to be kept track off. The goal was to establish a central platform where no tasks would be lost or forgotten. Another crucial aspect was the ability to collaborate on documents, especially for preparing conferences, projects, and organizational plans.

First steps with Stackfield

With the introduction of Stackfield, the school decided to structure the platform thematically according to school task fields. As a first step, the team created roum groups, each representing a higher-order topic area, which would later contain the corresponding rooms. The subject areas included general school management issues, curriculum development, administration, and IT. The various functionalities of Stackfield were then explored in a practical manner: We just jumped in at the deep end, says Ms. Müller.

Transparent task management in one place

Today, tasks at the organizational level are mapped fully in Stackfield. Within the rooms, tasks can be visualized clearly and contextually in various display formats – for example, as a classic list, in the form of a Kanban board with cards, or as a schedule. This not only provides a central overview of open and completed tasks, but also a clear thematic assignment in the respective work context.

Numerous additional detailed features are available for task management: each task can be assigned a status to record its current processing status. Subtasks enable fine-grained structuring when more detailed planning is required. And due dates as well as responsible individuals can be stored as well.

Mr. Helming particularly emphasizes the assignment feature: tasks can be assigned to one or more people, making responsibilities transparent to the team at any time. Subtasks can be individually dated and assigned as well, allowing for a targeted division of labor within teams.

Ms. Müller summarizes: Task management is now much more effective, and we save a lot of time with Stackfield. Tasks are documented, visible to everyone involved, and nothing gets forgotten or stuck in someone's head.

Collaboration on documents

Collaborating on documents is often essential in a school setting, for example when preparing for teacher or student conferenzes, where the goal is to create a single shared file rather than multiple similar presentations. With Stackfield, this can now be done easily and efficiently.

The relevant document is stored in the respective room, is visible to all participants, and can be accessed and edited directly as needed. The Edit locally feature is particularly helpful here: whenever a file is opened with this function, other room members can immediately see that the document is currently being edited, thus avoiding potential editing conflicts. As soon as a new version is uploaded, it automatically replaces the previous one – there is no need for manual version management. Mr. Helming emphasizes: Anyone can join work on a document at any time without countless different versions being in circulation.

For topics that are not shared externally and are only dealt with internally, Mr. Helming and Ms. Müller also enjoy using the pages – Stackfield's internal text documents. Content can be clearly structured and visualized, and versioning shows which version is being used at any given time.

If a room is no longer actively used, for example after completing a project, but certain contents such as minutes or presentations remain relevant, the room is archived. This way, the included files stay permanently accessible without affecting clarity in the sidebar.

Lively communication without email traffic

Especially when it comes to internal communication, Stackfield significantly reduces the workload for the school administration and the office, says Mr. Helming. Questions, comments, or feedback can be sent directly to the right place without any fuss, for example in the comment section of tasks or files. This eliminates the need to write a separate email for each piece of feedback.

Even large-scale projects can be structured and coordinated directly in Stackfield, for example the school concert organized in March 2025, which required intensive coordination in advance. Ms. Müller emphasizes how Stackfield made efficient project planning and communication possible.

Preparation and follow-up of school management meetings

With Stackfield's help, organizing and conducting school management meetings is much more structured and efficient. Relevant paperwork and information are stored centrally in the respective room in advance. This way, team members can prepare themselves and familiarize themselves with the content. Mr. Helming emphasizes: Our school management meetings are now much more efficient. We save ourselves a lot of explanation processes and get to the decision-making process faster.

In addition, topics or open issues for the future that arise during the meeting can be noted directly in Stackfield and remain documented, for example, as tasks, pages, or comments.

Incorporating users with restricted rights

Thanks to Stackfield's various user roles, people can collaborate in Stackfield with limited rights. This way, a colleague who is not directly part of the school's office or management but is nevertheless heavily involved in some organizational issues was added as a user with the role Guest. That's really positive, praises Mr. Helming.

Outlook for the future

Two months after introducing Stackfield, the comprehensive school Harkenberg Gesamtschule Hörstel is still at the beginning of its journey with Stackfield. In the future, other teams involved in organizational processes will be integrated, such as those who handle substitutions or timetables. Furthermore, the timeline module could become more relevant in the future, for example, to map management processes, according to Mr. Helming. Overall, the conclusion is positive. “We are excited to see how it all develops.”