Leon County Schools has records going back to 1900. They are required to keep student records for up to 99 years after the student has left the school or it is verified that they are deceased. Initially this medium-sized school district stored all of their records as paper files, and the total amount of files continually grew each year as a new class of student was graduated, and the school sent the files to the central location for archiving.

Files are frequently accessed to provide former students with transcripts of the files. Many of these record seekers are no longer in the immediate area, and files requested were laboriously copied, then given or mailed to the requestor.

In the late 1990s, the school district started microfilming records of recent graduates to manage the growth of the archive size, and to provide faster retrieval. File retrieval was done with a number of microfilm reader-printers, which were upgraded to digital microfilm scanners over time as the systems aged. As frequent retrievals were made over time the microfilm deteriorated. Lastly, only one person could retrieve files from a single roll of film at a time.

OSC was asked to provide a solution.

In August 2005, LCSB purchased one Canon CD-4070NW from OSC to start a new program of imaging student records. The files are auto-archived using names and student numbers, and filed on a central file server, cross referenced in a Microsoft Access database. With the online storage of the files, retrieval is simple and cost effective. The retrieval clerk searches for the record using the database or by using a Windows search for any part of the first or last name or the student number, retrieves the correct file, then sends the electronic file to the requestor. In far fewer cases than before, the file is printed and mailed.

Since the start of the program, LCSB Records has added three additional CD-4070NW systems, and has imaged over 400,000 student files. Records are easily backed up from the central server for data security and redundancy.

Due to the success of the student records program, the Records Division has now assumed responsibility for archiving employee records as well.

OSC worked with LCSB to create a cover sheet for the imaging process so that the same keystrokes used to enter the student information into the database creates a cover sheet with a “patch code” and barcodes for Student Number, Name and DOB. This permits auto-archiving of the student record with no additional keystrokes and with complete accuracy. LCSB is expanding this application into the employee records application.