The San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento County, California doesn’t have to be convinced of the power of the right software to unclog paper-bound processes. They’ve been using Image One’s RocketScan for their reduced lunch program for more than a decade.

But where one paper problem disappeared, the busy school district had plenty of other paper to manage. This includes having to enter data from 29,000 paper student emergency cards. It takes 5-10 minutes to capture all information on each card, which would have taken the school’s staff 2,450 to 2,900 hours to complete on top of their current jobs – an impossible task, and not capturing all emergency information puts students at risk, so they turned to Image One once again for a solution.

Intelligent Capture Transforms Emergency Card Process

With 40,000 students speaking seven languages in 42 elementary schools, nine high schools, eight middle schools, and a number of alternative schools, data entry in San Juan Unified is not a job for the easily frustrated. The district’s emergency information form had an estimated 80 fields, including vision screening, PE restrictions, and four layers of emergency contacts. Legibility was a chronic problem and forms, which had to be completed in triplicate each year, could take up to 10 minutes to update.

This 1970s-style paper system was left to school staff to complete whenever they could work it into their schedules. The district also needed the forms translated into languages that include Ukrainian, Pashto, Farsi, and Dari, a Northern Afghani dialect. “It was an ongoing project that never got completed,” says  Bart Hubbard, program manager for the district’s student information system.

The district wanted to provide a paper scanning solution as an alternative for parents who didn’t have a computer or needed technology assistance. And with a website that lacked mobile friendliness, they needed a versatile system.

“We looked for vendors that could provide something who we already had an existing history with,” Hubbard says. “The only scanning tool used in the district was RocketScan, so Image One came to mind.”

Now, Image One’s scanning and workflow software, RocketScan Plus allows students and parents to either submit information via customized paper forms for scanning, or input it directly online. It also walks software users through the process of scanning, validating, and exporting the data into the district’s system.

Not only has Image One and RocketScan Plus helped Hubbard and his team redesign and simplify their forms, they also provide the tools to streamline their delivery.

According to Hubbard, the scanning and validation work “fantastically” –  tens of thousands of forms into the process, the system is still going strong. The district is now working to add mobile capability to the  system.

Flexible Service, Help with Form Creation, Helped Streamline Process

With Image One’s help, Hubbard is now planning improvements to next year’s emergency form, such as simplifying information and making the process more mobile-friendly.

Working with Image One has allowed Hubbard and the San Juan Unified School District to move a once-stalled process toward completion. Last year the district was able to capture all information from the 29,000 student emergency cards by scanning them in with RocketScan Plus. This effort took 1,040 hours over a 3-month timeframe instead of taking 2,400 to 2,900 hours. The remaining 11,000 emergency forms required zero hours because these parents entered emergency information themselves through the RocketScan Plus online portal created by Image one – and, if the form isn’t entered correctly or completely, the parent can’t submit the information until it is corrected. The online forms delivers the information directly into the school’s system without any human intervention.

Success & A T-Shirt

Hubbard says Image One’s turnaround time and flexibility helped make the project a success.

“I would absolutely use them again,” Hubbard said. “If they sent me a t-shirt I would wear it.”

Contact us by calling 1-800-956-9000 or filling out the form below to learn more about Emergency Cards and other School Form Processing!