A Dynasty in the Making at West Sabine ISD

"Fine is not good enough — not with what we're being judged for in this state. If you're burning the wick at both ends just to keep the district going, that's a problem. Cariina didn't just fix our processes. It freed us to lead."

Dr. Carnelius D. Gilder

Superintendent, West Sabine ISD

The Challenge 

From ‘Musical Chairs’ to a ‘Hot Pot’ — What Dr. Gilder Inherited

Dr. Gilder walked these halls as a kindergartener decades ago, led the band as drum major all four years, served as student body president, and watched West Sabine shape him into a leader before he even understood what that meant.

Then, in 2020, he came home to find that West Sabine had cycled through five leadership changes in rapid succession: a nine-year superintendent who retired abruptly, two interim leaders who each lasted a year, a hire who left after eight months, and an acting superintendent gone in two. The board was unstable. The community was demanding change. The district had lost over 100 students.

District processes matched the leadership chaos. Absent-from-duty reports traveled by hand from teacher to secretary to principal to payroll to superintendent and back on triplicate paper forms. Maintenance requests vanished into hallways. The IT help desk and operations tickets lived in separate systems with no visibility. Google Forms captured data no one was alerted to check. Dr. Gilder found himself returning from conferences late at night to sign stacks of paperwork so his staff could start work the next morning.

Dr. Gilder's core value of communication was genuine. But the infrastructure to deliver on it wasn't there. He was a hamster on a wheel — manually pushing data, chasing approvals, and signing documents that bottlenecked through him alone.

The Solution

Building a System That Runs the District — Not the Other Way Around

Dr. Gilder had shopped. He'd been disappointed. When Cariina arrived, his instinct was skepticism until the demonstration. "Show me what the administrator sees." From there, he knew.

West Sabine built Cariina directly into their district homepage as the Tiger Impact Hub, a single point of entry for every department request, from cafeteria field trip registrations to counseling referrals to maintenance orders. By branding the platform as their own, the onramp was invisible. The adoption was total.

Maintenance and operations staff who also manage transportation were among the fastest adopters. Dr. Gilder can now watch from his office window as his crew wraps up a bus repair across the street, pulls out a phone, closes the workflow, and loops him in — without ever stepping inside.

The director of finance went further, working with Dr. Gilder to build a private, access-controlled layer within Cariina for the district's most sensitive documents visible only to the superintendent, the finance director, and technology leadership. The platform hadn't just replaced the old systems. It had grown into something the district shaped around its own needs.

For the first time, Dr. Gilder no longer needed to go looking for where something was in the process. The process came to him.

The Impact

The ROI of Administrative Automation

Based on conservative district estimates, Carina has helped West Sabine ISD reclaim two to three hours per week per staff member. That time savings has unlocked over $300,000 in staff capacity reallocated to focus on student outcomes. For Dr. Gilder personally, that’s over three hours each week no longer spent chasing approvals, signing paperwork, or routing requests.

That time has been given back to leadership.

It shows up in unscheduled hallway conversations with teachers, pop-in classroom visits, and being present where it matters most. He no longer stops by the office on his way out of town to clear paperwork. He no longer returns late at night to work through a backlog. His signature is no longer a bottleneck, and that changes what kind of leader he gets to be.

Disconnected Systems Replaced with One Source of Truth

Cariina replaced a patchwork of tools and manual processes, including a $17,000 inventory management tool, an IT help desk tool, a separate operations help desk, and a sprawling network of Google Forms with a single system that tracks work from request to resolution.

One of the quieter but more powerful outcomes has been staff morale. Staff no longer submit requests into a void. They can see what’s been received, what’s in progress, and what’s done. That visibility improved trust, accountability, and day-to-day morale across the district.

Built for a More Demanding, Data-Driven Future

West Sabine's board expects clarity, accountability, and answers. They want to know checks and balances are in place, and that their superintendent isn't burning out. Cariina gives Dr. Gilder the answers they need before they ask. 

Dr. Gilder's vision doesn't stop at the district office. Now, the focus shifts from adoption to expansion and he is already exploring how to extend this same visibility into classrooms, safety processes, and daily student interactions for the coming year so West Sabine students return in the fall to a fully connected campus.