Georgetown Independent School District

Georgetown Independent School District (GISD) is a rapidly expanding school district located in Georgetown, Texas, just north of Austin.

Out of more than 1000 independent school districts in Texas, they are the 74th largest. GISD has 16 campuses plus an administration campus. Georgetown Independent School District seeks to empower students to become life-long learners and leaders by providing quality education.

The Problem

The Special Education department of GISD was faced with the issue of space. They had file cabinets lining all four walls of a 12’x 12’ office and a back to back row in the middle. It was not possible to open both the cabinets along the wall and the middle row at the same time. File cabinets were stacked upon file cabinets, and on top of that, the records administrators had no real method of tracking their files. At any given point in time it was difficult to know whether a file was in the central file room or had been checked out to an individual campus; in addition there were multiple versions of files which only added to the difficulties of tracking down the right one. Faced with being out of space and needing to be able to definitively track the files, GISD needed a document management solution.

The Administrative complex for GISD did not have the space to bring in more portable buildings in order to accommodate the growing need for employees much less store records. The district began to fear they might have to physically move their records to an off-site storage facility and bring in additional personnel to administer the paper records; however, it seemed this option would only complicate the process. They wanted to be able to eliminate the paper (1.5 million documents in all), recapture the office space, and create a simple way to manage and distribute the student records in a secure manner.

The Solution

For the Special Education department of GISD the solution was to make a 180 degree change in the business process. Originally there was a single person at the administrative campus who was responsible for administering all 4,300 special education files. Individual files were delivered to and from each campus either via campus mail or in many cases campus coordinators would make special trips tothe admin office to get files. By imaging all of the files, and continuing to do so as new records were created, individual campus personnel are able to get their own data bypassing the single person in the administrative office. Users are restricted to records for their own individual campus which helps maintain privacy. The special education administrative secretary can now focus on other aspects of her job instead of spending 90% of her day “working the files”. The 100% adoption of FileBound by the Special Education department has motivated other departments to implement FileBound as well.

The Human Resources department can answer questions about benefits, dates of employment, and other routinely asked questions quickly and easily from their desktops rather than having to dig through the paper hard copy files.

The Accounting department can more easily communicate with vendors regarding invoices, again, all from the ease of their desktop. Additionally they can now scan directly to FileBound rather than having to manually create files or add new receipts to recurring vendors.

Results

Georgetown Independent School District now operates with innovation and efficiency. Yes they saved space and increased productivity, but having a centralized content management solution has increased interdepartmental communication which has created an overall efficiency with a simple, easy to use system. GISD now has the ability to track and account for files; they no longer have to be unsure about the location of their documents. With FileBound, they know who is accessing what and they can find what they need quickly and easily, exactly when they need it. Because of the success of the original project, they have since moved on to scanning records for their HR, Accounting, Payroll, Curriculum, Technology, Federal Programs, CATE, Superintendents Office, and General Administration departments. FileBound was able to help a rapidly expanding school district effectively organize and manage their “paper problem” at an affordable cost.

Bottom Line

FileBound efficiently streamlines processes and secures documents, allowing organizations to confidently look to the future.