Wednesday, June 20, 2001
|
Wednesday, June 20, 2001 |
|
New records facility opens at LaFayette Obtaining school records and transcripts of students who have attended a Fayette County school is going to get easier with the opening of a new records center at the LaFayette Educational Center. In building C in the former Fayette County High School band room, the new center will eventually serve as a depository for all school documents, including student transcripts. The best feature of the new center is that people can go to one central place and have their school information retrieved electronically. Through a program called LaserFische, the latest in imaging software, the school system is scanning the records of just about every student who has ever been enrolled or graduated from one of the county's schools. With a few strokes on the keyboard and a click of a mouse, system officials can quickly locate a student's school record or transcript and print it on the spot. The center is halfway finished scanning records from Fayette County High School and is planning to tackle the ones from McIntosh High next. Until all records can be transferred from each school to the center and scanned, former students who want copies of their transcripts or school records may have to go to the school they attended. It is recommended that people call the center first to see if it has a particular school's records. Currently, the center has two employees records officer Eve Harness and records secretary Jamie Karol. Due to limited staffing, the most recent student graduation transcripts will not be moved into the center until one year after the graduation date. "We get so many requests that first year for transcripts that we don't feel like our present staff can keep up with the demand. However, after that first year we will be able to take a lot of work off the schools," said Juliette Babb, executive director of school improvement and general education and head of the records center. Not only will the new records center make it more convenient for people to retrieve their school information, but it will also help to protect and preserve student documentation. By keeping the records on a computer disk in addition to regular paper storage, the risk of them being permanently destroyed due to flood, fire or other destructive activity is almost none. As a precautionary measure, a second disk containing duplicate information is being housed at an offsite location. "With this new system we should never lose a record due to destruction or deterioration," said Babb. According to Babb, there have been two fires in the history of the school system where documents were destroyed and situations where older records being stored in facilities at the board of education were damaged due to a lack of climate control. The oldest records that have been scanned date back to the 1940s. However, because of the fire damage, complete records of all students go back only as far as 1965. "It is really interesting to look at the older documents, they were so thorough with their records back then. If a student had to leave early, the record would document why, such as 'had to go pick cotton'," said Karol. Karol added that the center receives a lot of requests for very old transcripts from people who are trying to prove their age for Social Security benefits. "People who were born at home have no birth certificate so they use school records to prove their age," Karol explained. In addition to being convenient and offering a safe way to store student records, the center will take a burden off the individual schools. No longer will office staff have to wade through boxes to pull record and transcript requests. Also, by transferring records to the new center, schools are freeing up needed space. The records center has been awarded two grants totaling $25,000 from the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board to assist with the start up of the center. In addition to housing student records, the center will eventually be home to other documentation kept by the school system. After all student information has been scanned, officials at the center will begin working on personnel records followed by the system's financial documents. The records center is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. There is a $2 fee per transcript. For information call the records center at 770-460-3990.
|
||