22
Sites
2,700
Staff
22,000
Students
New Caney ISD
New Caney ISD
School districts generate endless piles of paper workflows. Learn how this sprawling Houston-based school district overhauled a massive paper archive headache into $330,000 savings, 75% faster enrollment, and 40% reduction of paper with Ricoh’s Laserfiche Certified Scanners and Laserfiche software.
New Caney Independent School District has graduated thousands of students over its 60 years of serving the Houston, TX area. But it never fully dealt with the growing volume of paperwork that came with it. Files were stored in a hide-and-go-seek fashion: Housed in storerooms, in cabinets, in warehouses, and in attics, the large “Space City” district needed just that, more storage space.
Enter Tammy Yarbrough, the first records management officer for New Caney ISD who was hired to find a solution. The district needed to bring all the documentation into a central digitized system, and more control. From transcripts to employee files, to student assessments, and health records, paper files were scattered across spaces, making organization unwieldy and disconnected.
Yarbrough, a resourceful problem-solver, spent her first year taking inventory. “We went to every department on every campus and to our warehouses,” she says. “Then we moved most of the records into a centralized location, so we could determine what to purge.”
But the next phase required a system overhaul: document scanning systems for schools that could digitize and organize student folders with anywhere from 50 to 3,000 documents, and that could also handle all the workflows across the district.
From several days to same day records
K-12 records management is a major operational effort that touches every department, and public records access is a central, time-consuming process. From litigation requests, to transcript, salary, and HR requests, Yarbrough needed to ensure that New Caney could systemize them.
Laserfiche partners with RICOH fi Series scanners
Yarbrough saw how the existing Laserfiche software made it possible to securely search records, process electronic forms, and automate workflows. “Laserfiche is one system with endless capabilities,” observes Yarbrough.
However, the system lacked equally versatile and fast scanning technology. Yarbrough hired a team of 40 people to digitize all the files, but the district’s legacy multi-function printers could not meet the need. That’s when they found RICOH fi Series Scanners. These scanners’ technology offered significantly more speed, precision, and reliability.
“As soon as we tried the fi Series scanners, we loved them,” says Yarbrough. “We knew they were the ones we wanted. They were better and faster, and we ended up with far fewer problems with them compared to what we’d been using. Plus, the engineering team came out and trained our technicians, which was a great help,” she recommends.
With Ricoh’s support, the district digitized over 17,000 student folders, replacing disjointed documentation with secure, on-command digital records. Using Laserfiche, they manage everything from report cards to attendance notes with over 400 custom forms. As a result, they were able to reclaim space across 22 campuses.
“As soon as we tried the fi Series scanners, we loved them,” says Yarbrough. “We knew they were the ones we wanted. They were better and faster, and we ended up with far fewer problems with them compared to what we’d been using. Plus, the engineering team came out and trained our technicians, which was a great help.”
Because of the RICOH-Laserfiche partnership, the system has transformed how the district manages public records and staff processes. Processes that used to involve digging through folders and compiling documentation, such as student withdrawals, attendance records requests, and residency evidence, are automatically routed to attendance clerks.
Public information requests that once took days now take just a few clicks to easily meet the state’s 10-day deadline and Texas Records Exchange requirements.
“With Laserfiche, we will never have lost files,” she says. Coupled with RICOH fi Series Scanners, records are easily retrieved. “It's literally a click of buttons that we're able to get these records to them, usually the same day that they send us the request,” Yarbrough explains
For staff operations, the new system automates contract notifications and pay agreements, even for employees without district email, simplifying processes for all 2,700 employees. If forms such as physicals or medical records are missing, everyone from parents to staff at every level receives personalized automated notifications.
With RICOH scanners and Laserfiche together, staying compliant and handling state reports is so much easier. “We’re able to tag documents, combine them all into a PDF file, and then just upload them to the state,” Yarbrough explains. That improvement significantly reduces all the manual work the district was doing.
Together, Ricoh scanners and Laserfiche have reduced enrollment errors and processing slogs. Parents can now complete forms online via Skyward, the district’s student information system (SIS). Returning students' information is pre-filled, which eases the burden on staff. As a result, enrollment processing time has dropped by 75%, and all forms are accessible district-wide within 24 hours. With fully digital records, transferring files between school districts is now as simple as tagging documents and exporting a PDF, enabling thousands of page-transmissions in minutes.
“Every campus had huge storage spaces, filing cabinets after filing cabinets,” Yarbrough explained. “We were able to get rid of all of them, selling them in auction. We converted those storage spaces into offices or conference rooms. Across our 22 campuses, that's at least 45 rooms now available for office or storage space,” Yarbrough shares.
Now, with all the cleared space and innovative processes, the New Caney Independent School District is on their way to a complete digital transformation.
Before Laserfiche Certified Scanners
❌ Millions of disconnected files across sites
❌ Days of lengthy enrollment paperwork
❌ Manual document compiling
After RICOH Implementation
✅ Centralized, searchable digital records
✅ Same-day enrollment processes
✅ District-wide data transparency