Thanks to a grant from the New York State Archives, VCSD will soon begin digitizing its historic school records, some of which date back to the 1800s.
Currently the district’s paper documents—175 boxes filled with more than 600,000 pages of documents—are housed in a cramped and out of the way storage space in the district office.
“These are amazing history and who we are. If anything were to ever happen, we would lose everything. We don’t want to ever risk that,” said Superintendent Frank Macri.
The $72,344 state grant will allow the district to scan and digitize many of its paper records into PDFs and house them on a secure network. Student and employee records will be the first documents to be digitized.
Digitizing these documents will save the district and its taxpayers at least $2,613 per year on storage costs and also allow for a more efficient records-keeping and retrieval process.
The district hopes to secure additional funds to convert items such as scrapbooks and even a notebook with an account of the district’s first 1826 schoolhouse, which offer important details about the district’s 200 year history.
Preserving our district’s records and history
Learn more in this News 10 ABC story about how VCSD is preserving its records and history: