Hear What Ontario-Montclair School District Had To Say About RocketScan and Image One

For California’s Ontario-Montclair district, the 2013 school year began with a big challenge: a new state funding formula required the processing of thousands of additional applications for added state funding for their low-income students.

The state had just begun implementing the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which required schools in lower income districts to verify each student’s eligibility with alternative income forms. Previously, schools that already qualified for Community Eligible Provision (CEP), or reduced meal plans, didn’t have to submit any forms for additional funding.

But in the fall of 2013, that changed and 26 of the district’s 32 kindergarten through eighth grade schools now required alternative income forms. Joel Andrade, the district’s Food and Nutrition Services Technology Specialist, said the school had to find a solution for processing thousands of additional applications quickly. “We found out about it at the beginning of the school year,” Andrade said.

A Software Solution Makes Processing Additional Applications Stress-Free

The district turned to Image One and RocketScan. “We were one of the first districts to contact RocketScan,” he said. “A package for California was in place within a month or two.”

RocketScan, a solution that automates the processing of applications scanned into the system or received online, was designed to take the work out of meal application processing and reporting with software that makes it easy for both parents and administrators.

Andrade particularly appreciated RocketScan’s “ease of use” and reliable tech support as well as the software’s ability to extract reports and data and customize the forms as needed. “RocketScan makes the nutrition services department happy and the front office happy,” Andrade said.

When validation time comes, Andrade and his team can easily provide the data for the district to review with little effort. “I’d rather have it scanned in than have a stack [of applications] here and a stack there,” Andrade said, “This is very centralized.”

Fewer Errors and More Applications Returned

Image One also set up an online alternative income survey for parents, which reduced errors and boosted the rate of returned applications from 70% to 80-85%, Andrade said.

And instead of having to manually input all information into a spreadsheet, they simply track it in the RocketScan database, export everything to Excel, and upload straight to their student information system. “I would say they have saved (us) a lot of manual work,” he said. “When other districts call, we recommend it.”