Using Electronic Signatures for Innovation in K-12 Education

In recent months, many school districts across the US needed to quickly develop back-to-school strategies that enabled remote learning and kept students and faculty safe. According to an analysis from Education Week, 74% of the 100 largest school districts and 49% of all districts opened with remote learning – affecting more than 9 million students. Hybrid instruction now is used in 27% of school districts, and 24% offer full in-person instruction.  

Remote learning and innovation in education will more than likely continue well into the future, and K-12 school districts now have the opportunity to streamline administrative processes to better improve the student-teacher experience, while also reducing regulatory burden (e.g.  IEP/504 compliance) and risk. With back-to-school season officially behind us, now is the right time to develop long-term strategies for distance learning innovation in schools.

Here’s how to get started:

• Transform paper-based processes: The first step is to find the right electronic signature solution that can transform all paper-based processes. These include enrollment forms, permission slips, as well as general student forms and special education forms.
• Make all documents accessible via mobile:  Ensure that the e-signature provider can help prioritize modernization efforts for optimal efficiency and student/faculty experience. The goal is to ensure that every form is digitally fillable, signable and searchable from nearly any mobile device.
• Streamline the full agreement process: For documents like IEPs, teacher contracts, student packets, and procurement forms, consider finding the right solution that can fully streamline the entire agreement process -- from document creation to signing to analysis and management. Ultimately, the right provider can help your entire school district to embrace a full agreement cloud. 

By implementing digital agreement processes, K-12 school districts allow teachers more time teaching, and less on paperwork. Administrators are also more efficient in their work, can better meet the needs of students, and be more responsive to parents.

K-12 leaders from Evergreen School District, Paramount Unified School District and Simi Valley Unified School District in California recently joined us for a webinar to discuss how they rapidly adopted the use of DocuSign in response to the pandemic. The positive outcomes that have been achieved included streamlining all documents for IEPs, 504 plans, human resources and other business process forms, and much more.

“One of the great things about DocuSign is that instead of the staff needing to print, sign and mail IEP forms to the district office, we can now download these forms and upload them into DocuSign,” said Sean Goldman, assistant superintendent of student support services at Simi Valley Unified School District. “Now, there’s no need to send anything to the district office. Everything is accessible through DocuSign, which saves us a tremendous amount of time.”

You can learn more about how K-12 DocuSign customers in California were able to transform their agreement processes by eliminating paper, automating workflows, and connecting the systems within its organization in our on-demand webinar.

This blog was originally published on GovTech.com