We’ve heard a lot about the challenges teachers have shouldered during the worldwide health crisis, particularly with regard to making remote or hybrid learning an effective reality for our kids. I’ve written before about how effective imaging solutions can support teachers working remotely. What about the folks in administration, including the district office? Today I’m talking to registrars, office administrators, clerks, and anyone who helps manage the paperwork required for our modern school systems.
These offices take in and track myriad forms, documents, and identification, including:
- Registration forms and backup documentation
- Immunization documentation
- Emergency contact information
- Student records, including transfer files
- Individualized Education Plans (IEPs)
- Permission slips
- HR information for employees
- ID for family, staff and volunteers
- Backoffice records, such as purchase orders and invoices
Even before the shift to remote working and learning, many school offices and districts were finding ways to minimize the paper accumulation by digitizing as much as possible. For instance, Lynbrook High School in California digitized its IEPs and saved them to a secure portal, and the school moved educational materials to an online learning management system. The Edmonton Catholic School District moved HR records for 3500 employees to a secure cloud repository as well. Documents are captured, indexed, and stored securely with easy accessibility.
How did these and other K-12 district offices and support staff make this happen? Our industry-leading document scanning solutions, of course! We’ve got some of the most efficient solutions for school administrators to digitize, organize and share documents with students, teachers, parents and other schools and trusted organizations.
Good things come in small packages
About the size of a shoebox, the ScanSnap iX1600 Chromebook Edition, proves that effective technology doesn’t have to be complicated. When connected through Wi-Fi, you can place the scanner, untethered, anywhere in your office that is convenient. This can be especially helpful in a crowded office setting—or a socially distanced one.
Embracing deviceless scanning
One of the most exciting functions of this full-featured scanner is called “deviceless scanning,” meaning that you do not need to open your computer or mobile device to orchestrate where you want the scanned image to go. When you set up a profile, you can simply indicate which cloud service you’d like to use. This is great for connecting to classroom and learning management systems like Google Classroom, Kami, Microsoft OneDrive or Teams classroom, and more. You can even set up a profile to send the scanned file as an email attachment.
Of course, you can scan to devices of all sorts: a Windows or Mac computer or iOS or Android device. Many people in the education field are using Chromebooks these days. With their reasonable price point and easy administration, Chromebooks are a welcome option for frustrated, underfunded school districts. We’re happy to report that it’s really easy to scan to Chromebooks using the ScanSnap iX1600 Chromebook Edition and our ScanSnap Home App.
Contactless registration
Another option is the fi-800R. Its unique design makes for a perfect self-service scanner for students and parents to provide ID and paperwork required for registration. With this model’s Return Scan feature, items are fed through the scanner’s front feeder and then returned to the user directly. This allows the user to present and scan them without a staff member having to do it. This is a more hygienic solution which also saves time for the administrator. This model fits into tight spaces and includes helpful features like Automatic Document Skew Correction and Active Separation, so you don’t have to be fussing with complex settings to get great paper handling. This model provides an agile and efficient scanning experience in even the smallest spaces. With the PaperStream Capture and Image Processing software included, it will recognize pictures of faces, such as on an ID or passport, and will automatically order the pages in the file correctly in addition to enhancing each image for great OCR recognition.
Going digital solves so many challenges for the district and school admin offices. It means less paper to buy, store and recycle in addition to making it easier to securely access files remotely and to support staff in the classroom.