TAMPA, Fla. -- Pepin Academy used to pile up a lot of paperwork. From kids. From parents. From teachers.
“There’s a lot more accountability here so that generates more paperwork,” says Monika Perez, principal of the Tampa school that caters to students with learning disabilities.
So the public charter school is trying something different by making all that paper disappear.
With the help of Script, a small Tampa tech firm gaining a national reputation for helping schools de-clutter, Pepin is on the verge of going “paperless.”
No more lost permission slips. No more misplaced administrative documents.
All those mountains of crumpled paper sent home in backpacks are gone.
A typical sports permission and clearance form at Pepin is about 13 pages. Now it several quick clicks on a computer.
“I don’t even need a mailbox anymore,” says Perez. “Everything’s electronic.”
Script says schools can save more than $150,000 a year in both money and time by going paperless. Pepin said the supply savings go “right back into the classroom.”
The biggest challenge for Script is convincing schools to embrace the future.
“Sometimes it’s scary when we’re taking away their paper,” says Script’s Aaron White. “That’s all they’ve known.”
To find out more about Script, visit www.scriptapp.com.
