Streamlining School Records with Efficient Document Conversion Solutions

Streamlining School Records with Efficient Document Conversion Solutions

Managed Outsource Solutions 8596 E. 101st Street, Suite H Tulsa, OK 74133

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The education sector relies on enormous amounts of school records that are typically stored in filing cabinets. School records are at the heart of many processes in schools and in higher education. A school must maintain a complete, cumulative record of students' personal data, transcripts, grades and course from the time of admission. School records typically include records of: 

Student names, addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers

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Classes taken and grades received

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Test scores

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Degree, certificates or awards

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Attendance

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Immunization

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Disciplinary action

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Medical issues

When schools rely on paper records, they face cumbersome administrative processes, high storage costs and lack of efficiency. The ideal alternative is to digitize the records and also prepare for frequent audits by state auditors.This will enable digital conversion of the above mentioned records. Schools will experience improved efficiency, be able to make better informed decisions and invest more resources on student achievement. When the number of documents to be converted is huge, a viable solution is to outsource the task to a document scanning and conversion company.

Challenges Faced by Educational Institutions 

The growth of paper files each year require file cabinets and more room to store files either onsite or in offsite warehouses

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It is time consuming to search for files in the cabinets. It also affects the audit preparation time. They may be charged a fee if the information is not produced on time.

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Heightened risk of loss of information or exposure of sensitive data with paper files.

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Waste of time during enrolment and registration. School officials find it difficult to organize these files.

How Long Are School Records Kept?

The length of time for maintaining school records is set by the local governments or school districts. Some states have specific laws that provide guidance regarding this time period. For instance, the Massachusetts Department of Education has fixeda 60 year retention period that will be in compliance with Massachusetts state law. They have also added that the requirement was up to each school district. Higher education institutions have a policy of permanent retention. However, schools are required to keep a student’s record for at least 7 years after a student has left.

Why Schools Retain Student Records 

If any student wants to go for further studies then, he or she will need proof of graduation, transcripts or special certificates to earn acceptance. They must obtain a copy of specific records to prove that they have attended certain classes or met certain educational criteria.

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Law enforcement agencies sometimes request for specific school records asa part of background investigation. In some cases attendance records are also checked.

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Student records become useful when students apply for a job. They are required to show their graduation or diploma records as proof before taking up the job.

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School records may be needed in a variety of legal cases including lawsuits involving discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and other issues.

How Schools Store Student Documents Some school records are stored and maintained in the computer whereas some others are still recorded on paper. In the earlier days, records were all kept manually and recorded on papers, microfilm, aperture cards etc. Most schools have thousands of documents kept on physical mediums like paper or microfilm. Some schools have entire rooms, floors, or even buildings full of records. These records are categorized first based on the school year and then stored alphabetically. Finding these records is another task for administrative officials which can easily take hours or sometimes even days. Without specific information, the search process could take weeks and each time these records are handled, there is a risk of damage or misplacement.

Scanning and Digitization of School Records Many schools face the problem of storing and managing the school records for a long period of time. This issue can be resolved by converting these records into digital form. With reliable and experienced document scanning and conversion services and their special scanning equipment and advanced software, trained technicians quickly convert paper documents into digital format at affordable rates.

Files can easily be copied and centralized and storage space can be reduced from large rooms down to small cubicles; retrieval of data also be done very quickly.

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Eastern Carver County School located in the south west suburbs of Minneapolis has 9,600 students. Since the student records were to be maintained for long years, student files used to take up a lot of space. To avoid the clutter of physical records this school decided to make the student records completely electronic. 

Each student has a cumulative folder that contains all the records accumulated during their tenure at the district and stored in repositories.

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Student records are scanned as soon as they are received and the person who scans the records appends the Student General template, and populates the student ID and document type fields.

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When a new student joins, the details are collected and scanned immediately. Similarly, if a student is withdrawing from the district or changing his address, the school staffs fill out a custom electronic form on the district website.

Benefits of Digitizing School Records 

Provides a central, searchable repository of student information

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Enables capture of legacy files for quick access to historical data

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Reduces the need for physical storage space for papers as well as the cost associated with it

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Enables quick filling up of forms at the time of enrolment and registration

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Protects confidential data and prevents loss of information

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Manages full cycle of records, including automated archiving after a student leaves

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Supports green initiative by reducing paper use and printing

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Dramatically cuts time to prepare for audits

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800-670-2809