Coppell Independent School District (ISD) is a public school system just outside the Dallas/Fort Worth area in northern Texas, with 1,600 staff members serving over 13,000 students across 18 schools. With a 99% high school graduation rate and 97% overall score in its 2022 State Academic Accountability Rating, Coppell ISD prides itself on supporting students through all avenues available, from the quality of teachers to innovative technology solutions that drive administrative innovation.

As part of its mission to serve students and administrators, Coppell ISD partnered with Laserfiche to transform key administrative processes and improve document management practices throughout the district.

Coppell ISD consulted with a local Laserfiche solution provider and decided to bring on Laserfiche as an enterprise content management (ECM) technology solution, with the initial goal of modernizing and automating the district’s human resources department. All staff records had previously been stored in physical files and manual processes created a major risk of user error. District administrators chose Laserfiche as a solution because they knew once the HR automation project was complete, they could use the software for many additional projects across departments. “Once you understand the capabilities of Laserfiche, you can utilize it for much more than the original use case,” said Angela Goerner, director of enterprise content management for Coppell ISD.

Once the HR department automated crucial processes like annual contracts and handbook agreements, Goerner and Coordinator of Student Information Systems Carol Freese decided to automate another manual process that historically created an administrative bottleneck: the online student enrollment system.

Historically, the student enrollment process was a convoluted series of Google Forms, manual information verification and an enrollment software that required parents to keep track of a username and password — and resort to calling Coppell ISD administrators when they forgot that information. Administrators at different Coppell ISD campuses all had their own processes for gathering documentation, informing parents and supporting students. “Administrators were either on the phone or back-and-forth emailing, and they were required to create their own organization system. It slowed everything down, and opened the door for mistakes,” said Goerner.

Coppell ISD also had to rely on an external administrator to customize their previous digital enrollment system, and didn’t have the option to develop digital cumulative files for their students. Administrators were responsible for managing cumbersome manual processes, like hunting down proof of residency and manually transferring documents from the enrollment system to their student information system (SIS), eSchoolPlus.

To eliminate these pain points for parents and administrators, Goerner standardized and automated the student enrollment process in Laserfiche. The process was reduced to three main steps, with all the manual work either eliminated or reduced to quick approvals in the Laserfiche system. “We were able to customize exactly what we wanted to get from parents and make the application work for the parent as well as the administrators,” said Goerner.

Historically, the student enrollment process took a week or longer. Now, when Coppell ISD gets an enrollment request from a parent, they can usually get the student enrolled and in school the next day.

Transitioning the student enrollment process into Laserfiche had the ancillary benefit of kickstarting the development of digital cumulative folders for all of Coppell ISD’s more than 13,000 students.

Previously, Coppell ISD kept physical files for each student — ranging in size from about 40 pages on average up to 300 pages — which office administrators had to manually update. Administrators had to file every report card, every test score and every student-related incident report into these physical student files.

With Laserfiche, when a student is accepted to attend a Coppell ISD school, all the documents from their application are automatically added to a new digital cumulative file. Grades and test scores are automatically added to the cumulative files each semester. If a student needs to transfer between schools in the district, there’s no need to transport physical files, significantly reducing the likelihood that crucial documentation will be lost or left behind.

Coppell ISD was also able to directly integrate Laserfiche with its SIS system, PowerSchool eSchoolPlus. Prior to launching the Laserfiche enrollment process, Freese had to manually launch a transfer process between the enrollment system and eSchoolPlus, which opened up the door to errors.

“Errors would occur, and I would have to track down which files didn’t transfer properly and why they didn’t transfer. I would also have to go in and fix data. That was enormously frustrating,” said Freese.

Now, when an application receives final approval from an administrator, a Laserfiche workflow and integration with eSchoolPlus creates a new student record, accessible to administrators within about 20 seconds.

“Laserfiche has allowed us to automate our very complex enrollment process, saving time and ensuring all the appropriate people are notified automatically and all the appropriate documentation is collected,” said Freese.

Coppell ISD’s mission is to “educate the whole child,” supporting their students not just academically but in terms of their emotional well-being and safety. With this mission in mind, Goerner’s next priority for digital transformation was a series of processes related to student threat assessments, bullying investigation and Title IX protocols.

“The threat assessment and bullying investigation process is vital for student, staff and district protection,” said Goerner. “Our students’ safety is always important, but the proper collection of documentation is just as important for other districts and state reporting purposes.”

Previously, Coppell ISD captured the threat assessment information in a Google Form, which did not allow for an accurate information flow throughout the whole process. Notifications to campus and district administrative staff were sent out manually, which would often slow down completion time or create gaps where crucial staff members were left out of notification process. In instances of bullying, the manual threat assessment form had to be completed, as well as a separate paper-based bullying investigation process.

Goerner developed a Laserfiche workflow that includes:

Digitizing these processes has allowed Coppell ISD to combine the requirements of the threat assessment form within the bullying investigation form, simplifying the experience for staff members. Students who require interventions now automatically get a support plan put in place within the bullying investigation form, which reduces the amount of paperwork and process steps significantly.

 “Counselors and administrators are excited because it’s going to save so much time and eliminate so much manual tracking of support plans.” said Goerner.

Upon deploying the threat assessment process, turnaround time on completion of a safety and support plan for students has significantly dropped, from about a workweek to as short as one day. Campus staff that are required to provide interventions are notified immediately, and the digital process is a key accountability tool to ensure timeliness in implementing interventions for students. Taking advantage of Laserfiche’s wide array of tools, threat assessment/bullying intervention documentation is automatically added to students’ cumulative folders, easily redacted in the event of an open records request and automatically transferred to the correct office for students who change schools. Via the integration, the new threat assessment process writes directly to eSchoolPlus for data tracking and state reporting as students transfer between Texas school districts.