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What began as an effort to improve communications between school
board members and the superintendent and administrators of the
Katy (Texas) Independent
School District has evolved into electronic board agendas
and paperless board meetings.
Using its own technology personnel and off-the-shelf products,
Katy ISD has pitched the three-inch board agenda binders in favor
of a web site accessible by board members, central administrators,
and key support staff. In so doing, the district has used technology
to communicate more quickly and work more efficiently. An added
bonus has been the estimated $5,000-5,500 yearly savings in printing
costs.
For this district of 29 campuses and more than 32,000 students,
the most compelling consideration for moving to online board agendas
was the challenge of managing the district's increasingly detailed
business. Enrollment in Katy ISD has grown 5 to 7 percent each
year for the past 10 years, with no end in sight.
Superintendent Leonard Merrell says the move to electronic communications
has created opportunities for people to interact much more quickly.
"We're in the 21st century. It's time for us to think in terms
of how technology can help us do our jobs more efficiently and
more effectively. This is just one of the baby steps you take
to give the very distinct impression to others that we are serious
participants in the world of technology."
Getting started
Although Katy ISD board members and administrators first talked
about paperless board meetings sometime in 1998, formal work on
the project did not begin until fall 1999 when, as Merrell puts
it, the necessary elements just came together. Those elements
included skilled and committed employees in key positions, the
addition of planned hardware, and the backing of a technologically
literate board with a mindset of continuous improvement.
The move to improve communications between the board and the
district began in January 1999 when board members agreed to have
laptop computers, printers, fax machines, and dedicated phone
lines installed in their homes so they could access the district's
mainframe computer. The superintendent's weekly board updates
were converted from snail mail to electronic mail. As communications
became quicker and more efficient, items that needed immediate
action were sent to board members between the weekly updates.
November 1999 was targeted for the first paperless board meeting.
Wireless remote hubs were purchased, and staff members worked
vigorously to meet the deadline. On Nov. 10 the board held its
work study meeting with dual agendas -- a traditional paper agenda
and an electronic one. The process was repeated at the regular
board meeting five days later. Only a few minor glitches occurred,
and they were promptly remedied. Then in December, with both board
members and administrators bearing laptops, Katy ISD held its
first paperless board meeting.
Board President Joe Kimmel says the electronic agendas have
resulted in a "definite savings of time -- not only for the board,
but for the board secretary." Previously, making changes between
the work study and regular meetings was time-consuming. "[The
board secretary] explained how to get the revisions into the binder
with, 'Take this tab out, move this tab, do this, do that,'" says
Kimmel. "There was a lot of effort expended on her part and probably
the board's part that was unnecessary."
Board Vice President Judy Snyder was a driving force behind
the project, Kimmel says. Snyder recalls returning from a conference
with other board members in 1998 firmly determined to "make sure
we're moving into 2000 on top of the situation and not behind."
Merrell puts it another way. "I don't think we necessarily want
to stay on the cutting edge of technology, but we don't want to
fall off the back end when everybody else is moving toward that
cutting edge."
The technical side
Katy ISD created its electronic board agendas on a district
web site that is protected by a firewall. It is designed with
Microsoft's FrontPage and is hosted on a 600 MHz Dell PowerEdge
2300 NT server. With three 18 GB hard drives, the server will
accommodate the district's planned Intranet redesign.
During meetings, board members and administrators access the
site through Dell Latitude CP laptops. (Paper agendas are available
for the audience.) Two Baystack 660 wireless nodes, each capable
of supporting 30 wireless devices, reside in the district boardroom
and an adjoining room used for closed sessions. Produced by Bay
Networks, these smart hubs automatically connect to the next nearest
node when they begin to get saturated. The corresponding wireless
card is part of the laptop configuration.
Access via password is available only to board members, central
administrators, and a few key support staff. It is controlled
by the district's webmaster. Board members may view all sections
of the agendas, including items covered in closed sessions. Others
are denied access to the closed session and personnel information.
Users log on using Internet Explorer. On the board agenda home
page, they may link to the current month's work study agenda or
regular meeting agendas. Links are also available to special meetings
and archives.
Once the agendas are opened, colored tabs are provided along
the right hand side of the page to access subtopics of the agenda.
In the work study agenda, these tabs include agenda, closed session,
personnel, reports, consent agenda, discussion/action, discussion,
and future business. In the regular board meetings, recognitions
and presentations replace reports, and action replaces all discussion-related
tabs. Navigational tools are also available at the bottom of each
page, and plans are underway to add an additional link to subtopics
through the headings on the main agenda.
Because the board members were already familiar with the arrangement
of paper agenda materials by tabs, the online subtopics are currently
titled Tab 1, Tab 2, and so on. This terminology will probably
be dropped later. Under each subtopic/tab are links to accompanying
documents, most of them created with the Microsoft suite of Word,
Excel, and PowerPoint -- using both MS Office 97 for the PC and
MS Office 98 for the Macintosh. Documents that do not exist in
electronic format are scanned and saved as .pdf files, then read
with Adobe Acrobat Reader. All documents are locked as read-only
files.
The format in which accompanying documents are created determines
whether they will appear as one or more links under each subtopic.
For example, if both the report and its coversheet -- the legal
document which contains the required background, recommendations
and signatures -- are created in Word, this is one link. However,
if accompanying documents include a coversheet created in Word,
along with a presentation in PowerPoint or Excel, then these become
two separate links.
Scans are rendered with a Xerox Document Centre DC 332, which
is networked to the district's server. When a document is scanned,
this all-in-one printer/copier/fax/scanner generates a single-page
Scan to File Confirmation Report with the number of the scanned
document and its location in the computer by volume, path, and
folder. Through trial and error, the district has found that a
scanned document should be no larger than five pages -- otherwise
it takes too long to load. For longer documents, separate links
are set up in five-page increments.
Whenever possible, efforts are made to link to the original
electronic document. During the December 1999 board meeting, users
linked to the Texas Education Agency web page to view the results
of a state-mandated performance report for the district. Because
this document resides in its own folder with TEA, users were able
to view only Katy's report. The agenda provided a URL for those
who wanted to see the reports of other districts, though a link
could have been added.
Since board members were used to writing notes on their paper
agendas, they requested a way to do this electronically. "Our
Notes" was custom designed and is accessible from the toolbar.
With one click, it opens to a page with agenda headers and space
to type in comments. The page can be minimized and reopened as
needed.
The board secretary requests one paper copy of all materials
to be posted on the site and compiles the hard copies in a binder
in order to doublecheck arrangement of documents, required signatures,
and the like.
Future plans
Katy is one of the few large school districts in Texas to have
earned a rating of "Recognized" from the Texas Education Agency,
which rates all state districts as Acceptable, Recognized, or
Exemplary on the basis of such indicators as attendance and dropout
rates and scores on state-mandated tests. The district's good
record reflects its constant efforts to improve on what exists,
and the paperless board meetings are no exception. They have the
potential for giving the community "more opportunity to get involved
with the business of the board," says Kimmel, "and I think that's
good."
And continued improvements are in the works: Already Webmaster
Janet Arnett is researching software that will allow users to
write notes directly on .pdf files and designing a search engine
for the site. She also plans to add a regular "user tip" to the
home page to show how tools such as magnification and search can
increase efficiency. Should the board identify other needs --
such as electronic voting -- the staff will add them.
If your district is considering going paperless, visit Katy
ISD's district web site and let the webmaster know what you
think -- and how you're using technology to streamline the hard
work of school board service.
Nancy V.
Mills is president of The Mills Agency,
a public relations / marketing communications firm in Sugar Land,
Texas, that specializes in school public relations.
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