kids sitting at desks looking at teacher teaching with tablet

Case Study: School District 23, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia

Digital workflows help staff better serve parents and students.

About School District 23

Located in the Okanagan Valley, School District 23 is the fifth largest district in British Columbia. It encompasses 43 elementary, middle, secondary and alternative schools that together serve 22,000 students. The district supports its students by providing them with a safe and inspiring learning environment, and strives to develop each student into a lifelong learner and healthy, productive member of the global community.

“Having a partner that understands and is invested in your strategic direction – and wants to see you be successful – was a critical component of choosing a team like Ricoh."
Jon Rever
Assistant Superintendent
School District 23

Challenge

Technology is an integral part of today's modern education, both for the students and the administrative staff that supports them. And while the staff at School District 23 aimed to provide high quality services to their students, they lacked the technology to help them deliver on this mission.

Paper-based processes were causing bottlenecks and wasted time. Staff was struggling to manage the administrative tasks, and having to wade through reams of paperwork to get anything done. Also, information was inefficiently distributed.

Not only was dealing with this paperwork time-consuming, the clutter of filing systems was interfering with the smooth functioning of the office.

Solution

The district turned to Ricoh to implement a solution that would digitize their files and records, and bring them up to date with the latest in education technology.

While cost was important to the district, it was also important that they select a partner that would be part of their team; a partner that understood and invested in their strategic direction and wanted the district to be successful.

After discussing the district's needs and vision, the Ricoh team upgraded their office with a new print management solution and digitized their microfiche to enable staff to more easily search for, find and share documents. Ricoh's information digitization and print management solutions also helped the district get more out of their multifunction printers without unnecessary additional costs.

Our new print management technology equipped teachers, administrators and students with the ability to digitize their content and avoid the need to print physical documents. The solution also impacted systems they had in place in classrooms, like smartboards and laptops, and created an environment where digital content could be shared and consumed without relying on physical copies.

Result

the back of a classroom full of kids blurry

The district has seen improvements in efficiency, timeliness, cost savings, and general satisfaction among students and staff since implementing the Ricoh solution. In the HR department, staff now uses significantly less paper, and the disorderly filing cabinets around the office have been removed.

The district has used the new system to process nearly 7,000 forms from parents and students, sending them through to teachers and principals for quick sign-off. By digitizing this workflow, staff spends more time serving students and teachers and less time filing paperwork. Now, a process that would normally take employees months to complete can be completed in literally a week's time. With everything automated, no one is touching paper, and this has helped the district reduce the cost of management.

Not only has efficiency and cost been improved, the digital system has led to a greater commitment to privacy and security as well. The district can set levels of access, which is a requirement of the Privacy Commissioner. The system is tied to the district's strategies around security, privacy and other requirements that they must meet as an organization. As they build out these solutions, they're helping people in their system come into compliance and meet legislative requirements.

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