The West Orange Public Schools consist of 11 school buildings located in West Orange, New Jersey. In West Orange, students have access to more Advanced Placement courses than many surrounding districts. Courses in the culinary arts, advertising and graphic arts and technical education are available. Several shifts of late buses afford West Orange students the opportunity to participate in athletics, music, drama and more than 40 extra-curricular clubs.

The Problem
While the West Orange Public Schools had a central registration process based at the district office, it was very laborious and paper-intensive. Many forms were completed in triplicate and parents had to re-write the child’s vital statistics multiple times.

Once completed, the data compiled at registration was sent via interoffice mail to other school departments such as:
• Transportation
• Special Services
• Basic Skills
• English as a Second Language
• Information Technology

At peak registration times, four registrars were needed to handle the workload, compared to the normal staff of two.

The Solution
SRC Solutions had an existing relationship with West Orange, as the district’s supplier and service provider for Xerox DocuShare, and approached them with a newly-developed solution to their registration process.

EZ School Registration, SRC’s patented software application, allows school district registrars to gather relevant student data electronically and distribute it to multiple views among several school departments through automated business rules built into each form field. Through a series of on-screen wizards, guardians enter their child’s name and other information once and the software populates the remainder of the system-generated forms which later become the completed registration packet.

The most vital part of preparing for the installation was information gathering. Members of SRC’s software development team met with West Orange’s registrars and technology department in order to build each form to meet the specific needs of the department and gain an understanding of the business rules that would automate the data migration

Individual workstations and a server received different components of EZ School Registration, the former for data intake, the latter for receipt and distribution. Enrollment information is entered at workstations and transmitted to the server, which parses data to build the multiple views needed by other departments and to separate scanned images like birth certificates before storing all the information to DocuShare.

In addition to the software, a scanner for capturing documents like birth certificate and proofs of residency and a digital signature pad was installed. The system is also provisioned for adding a digital camera to take pictures of students at the time of registration.

Despite the tremendous number of processes EZ School Registration manages, training was very straightforward. About an hour was spent training the registrars on the software, the scanner and signature pad and another hour on practice runs through enrolling a student with EZ School Registration. A “train the trainer” method was used to deploy EZ School Registration throughout the school district and instruct support staff on its use.

The Results
Improvements in the student enrollment process were immediate, with the average time of registration slashed to just 10 minutes. Keying was reduced thanks to drop-down boxes with street names pre-programmed into the application and registrars no longer had to contend with illegible handwriting.

“We’re very excited,” Steven Kehayes, Director of Technology and Administrative Services said. “We are the only school district in the State of New Jersey to be using this,” he added about EZ School Registration. The departments who receive completed enrollments enjoyed the benefits of a single dashboard-type view of the student’s data, compared to the past method of information being spread over several pages of paper.

“The feedback that I’m getting from the support staff who works with it in the field is that they love it,” Mr. Keyhayes said. This comprehensive single view also allowed for easy printing, if necessary. “They have worked with every school and every principal and this has been successful.”

As West Orange continues to use EZ School Registration, Mr. Keyhayes said his plan is to increase staff efficiency and eventually add speed. “There is always a learning curve; once everyone understands their roles and responsibilities, this process will move much faster,” he said.

One of the most important aspects of EZ School Registration’s deployment was establishing a close relationship between SRC and West Orange. From software development to project management, SRC maintained a steady dialogue with West Orange staff.

“I’m very pleased with the lines of communication and everyone is comfortable with one another…(SRC) has been more than professional and more than gracious in our dealings and we are getting everything done,” Mr. Keyhayes said.