Schools to Move Registration, Forms Online

The district sends anywhere from 10 to 17 pieces of paperwork home for parents to fill out throughout the school year, Superintendent Scot Prebles said during .

It’s a “cumbersome” process, he said, both for parents who have to fill out the same information over and over again and for the staff who have to sort, send and process it.

And it’s a process the district hopes to have changed by the start of the 2012-2013 school year.

After Prebles’ presentation, the board approved a service agreement with infosnap to move its registration online during its meeting at the on Monday. According to its website, infosnap is an online admissions and enrollment system targeted specifically to schools.

The district hopes to pilot the new online system during kindergarten registration this spring and have it completely in place for next school year, said Coordinator of Community Relations Cathy Harbinak.

The online system will benefit the district, as well as the parents. Prebles said the current, paper-based system costs the district nearly $52,000 per year. That cost includes the paper and envelopes, as well as pay for the hundreds of hours of work it takes employees to copy, distribute, collect and verify information – and the amount of time it then takes to enter all the data into the district’s system.

The online system will cost about $34,000 for the first year, including start-up costs, and about $28,000 after that. That cuts out costs for production and distribution and lowers the amount of money spent on data processing each year, Prebles said.

But even more important than the money saved is the hours that will be freed up for staff, Prebles said.

Board of Education President George J. Balasko said the program should be just as helpful to parents.

Prebles noted that the cost estimates include some spending for families who don’t want to or can’t use the online system.