Before RocketScan, food services employees in the Joshua Independent School District in Texas were bogged down with student applications for the National School Lunch Program, which provides free and reduced-price lunches for low-income students.
“It saves us days. It’s unbelievable.”
– Melissa Colvin, food services secretary
Schools have to ensure that the applications are completed and processed within 10 business days at the beginning of each school year – a cumbersome and error-prone process when dealing with paper.
“It was really busy because there were stacks and stacks of paper applications,” said Melissa Colvin, food services secretary for the district. “It was really time-consuming.”
Three years ago, the district began the transition to Image One’s RocketScan software to streamline their application processing. Today the vast majority of applications in the district are filled out online.
“There is a huge difference,” Colvin said. “It saves us days. It’s unbelievable. Once you get into it, it’s fast and if there is a problem, they respond quickly. It’s perfect. It’s been a godsend.”
Meeting Deadlines without the Paper Clog
With RocketScan software, it is much easier to meet the 10-day processing deadline, Colvin said. The district provides computers so that all parents and guardians have the option of filling out online applications.
Paper applications from the families that still use them are easily scanned in. “We have a lot of grandfathers and grandmothers who are taking care of these children,” Colvin said. “They don’t have the time to come in and use the computers so we send home the paper applications.”
Automatic Eligibility Determination and 100% Accuracy
RocketScan and StrataApps meal application solutions can extract application data from paper or online applications 10 times faster than manual processes and with 100%accuracy. The software also automatically calculates eligibility.
With as many as 52% of the students in the country eligible for free and reduced lunches, automating the application process ensures that no eligible child is overlooked and saves busy school districts hundreds of hours of time.
Image One has helped more than 350 school districts across the country streamline their meal application processes with cost-effective solutions for scanning, processing, filing and reporting meal application data. Contact RocketScan today to find out how we can help.