Dist. 204 considers paperless meetings

Indian Prairie Unit District 204 board members are studying new electronic systems that save both trees and Administrative Assistant Janel Buchner's arms.

Chief Information Officer David Zolnier told board members Monday about two programs he is researching that would allow district meetings to be paperless, eliminating the need for Buchner to assemble and lug board packets to and from meetings.

"Having an electronic meeting, basically means taking all of the grunt work, the compilation of materials and documents and putting it into an online form so that all submissions are done digitally," Zolnier said. "Then there are no handwritten notes or summaries being printed and given to (Buchner)."

Buchner said being able to search and change documents at the last minute would also be easier with a new system.

"Searching is a bit of a manual process, and it's huge with the Brach-Brodie situation and other documents for lawyers. We've had to disassemble board packets, and by that I mean paper copies as thick as your board packet is, to take that apart, recopy it and send that to lawyers," she said. "Currently we archive every single board packet on paper and when it becomes too large for us to house here, it is put on CD-ROM and then we store it like that."

Each of the two programs would cost about $1,000 to set up and between $11,000 and $12,000 a year for the service.

Board members were split, with some being ready to upload the program next week while others wanted to make sure the program could be customized to best suit individual needs.

"Why don't we just do it at the next meeting and get it approved?" said board member John Stephens. "It's $12,000. We've approved $50 million in construction fees (for Metea Valley High School)."

Board member Curt Bradshaw wants to make sure whichever program they choose provides a flawless transition and doesn't shift costs to other departments.

"We need to maintain the usability of the materials," he said. "We need to make sure we're not just shifting the time from being in the community and doing other things."

Neighboring Naperville Unit District 203 implemented one of the systems being studied by District 204 in August.

According to Dist. 203's Web site, it is using electronic distribution to "replace the old method of compiling, printing, binding and distributing a limited number of paper Board of Education meeting documents."

Zolnier and Buchner will continue their research before reporting back to the board within the next few board meetings.