| Dear
Randy, I finally finished the little report on time saved by using Fast Direct. It is rather wordy! Mary Taylor There are many good things about your Fast Direct Program. One thing that affected me in particular was the time given back to me and the office staff with report cards and progress reports being on line. Work on report cards began in June: 1. Order card stock – blue, tan, green, yellow 2. Have report cards printed – two sided – blue for 7 & 8, tan for 4-5-6, green for 1-2-3, yellow for kindergarten – one for each child plus spares. 3. After the cards are printed (and hopefully line up as originals do otherwise merge must be realigned), they were personalized with name, year, grade, room, teacher, etc. This personalization was being mail-merged on the computer while cards were printed in our print room. The front and inside of the card were personalized. Heaven help you if you were interrupted and reprinted a classroom. Then more cards had to printed, etc., etc., etc.! 4. After cards are printed, they must be scored – individually, by hand, so they will fold neatly, then folded in half. 5. The cards are then put together by homeroom with the envelopes which have been stamped with a return address, and have been labeled in two places, parents on front of envelope, children with grade and room on flap for easy location. Folders for storage are prepared for each classroom. 6. The third quarter required a note be enclosed about putting two stamps on envelope for mailing at end of year. 7. End of year, after the teachers finalized grades, the principal read each card and we then sealed envelopes for mailing. If we missed the postman on the “mailing day” we had to walk the envelopes to the mailbox across the parking lot to mail. 8. Wow, that was a lot of work considering we have 450 students. Work on progress reports began in early August since they went out in mid-September. 1. Update teacher name, school year, quarter on computer. Run off masters and have printed – 8th grade one progress report for each child, grades 1-7 two progress reports for each child (Regular subjects and specialty subjects.) Two folders are prepared for each classroom and labels stating class, date due to principal, principal check off list, and on specialty a specialty check list. Labels are put on folders. 2. Progress reports are personalized – two for each student except eighth grade – and then put in folders and given to teachers. Folders must be collected by due date and given to principal. Principal then reads all progress reports. Progress reports are given to office staff to copy each sheet, one pink, one green. Pink sheets are collated by hand for each child and green sheets are collated also. Green sheets are given back to teachers – pink sheets will be filed in individual cumulative folders. 3. Meanwhile envelopes are prepared for each child’s parent. Labels and stamps are applied. Formerly I printed the envelopes individually thinking that would save labels, but it was too time consuming. Labels on envelopes went faster. 4. White sheets are folded and nested for each child. 5. Envelopes are stuffed and prepared for mailing. Then each envelope is rechecked that the name matches the reports. 6. Envelopes are sealed and bundled for mailing. 7. This took at least a full week for three of us in the office. Then the pressure to mail them on the date they were to be mailed took its toll on us. The time we saved was enormous. The money we saved in wages, printing, paper, card stock, computer time, labels, stamps and envelopes really adds up. We did report cards and progress reports four times a year. It is wonderful to have time back and all the pressure gone. Because, as everyone who works in a school knows, you never know what is going to happen on any given day. What work you had planned to do say, on Monday, may not get done until Friday. Now, I am happy to say, in the office all we have to do is turn on or off a toggle switch! Thank you so much! Sincerely, Mary Taylor Administrative Assistant to the Principal Assumption Parish School 314-487-6520 |