BOE Hears Presentation on Going Paperless

The New Milford Board of Education heard a presentation from online start-up company ZippSlip, Monday, as the company proposed for the district to completely digitize their records and databases at the board’s monthly meeting. 

The company, which was represented by David Leslie and Matt Holley, used a live demonstration of their website to showcase the tools and interface the website could offer the school district. 

“Our goal is to take everything that is on paper…and put it online,” Leslie said.  “If it’s on paper, we want to take it off paper.” 

ZippSlip has been formed over the course of the last two years and is currently testing their product with school districts across the country, Leslie said. 

The website would allow parents of students in New Milford’s school district to create a username, password and unique pin number that would act as an electronic signature on forms ranging from field trip permissions to medical history and emergency contact forms. 

In addition, ZippSlip offers parents a calendar of events happening in the district, text message notifications and detailed specifics for upcoming events, Leslie said. 

“We replace manual paper forms based processes with online, automated, paperless systems,” Leslie said. 

After Leslie presented the website, Board of Education President Daniel Conner began questioning Leslie on his concern over the possible safety and security of ZippSlip’s servers – something Leslie was quick to quell. 

“We have done everything that is available,” Leslie said. “We would never succeed as a company if we did not have robust security.” 

Board Member David Foo followed Conner by asking about Leslie’s future plans with the company – including the company’s intentions regarding the sale of the information to other companies interested in compiling the data. 

Leslie said ZippSlip had “no intention” of selling the information inputted. 

After no questions were raised from the public in attendance, the presentation concluded. 

After ZippSlip’s demonstration, the meeting continued and Superintendent Michael Polizzi gave his monthly report. 

Polizzi began his report by announcing the 10 new hires the district has made since the end of June and asked each one to stand up and introduce themselves to the board. 

Terry Wall, one of the district’s new teachers who will be teaching French in David E. Owens Middle School, said he was “excited to bring his real world experience into the classroom” after working in Europe with the United Nations.  

President Conner said he believed “[New Milford] did something right a few years ago” because many of the new hires were former graduates of the district’s schools. 

After each of the new hires introduced themselves and expressed their excitement of the upcoming school year, Polizzi praised them for their new ideas and expressed his interest in their plans for the coming year. 

“I can’t wait to see some of their ideas and projects come to fruition,” Polizzi said. 

Following the introduction of the new teachers and staff, Business Administrator Michael Sawicz gave his report to the board.

Over the summer the schools have been undergoing maintenance projects, lighting projects and other physical necessities – including the installation of 250 new computers that will be in new labs, Sawicz said. 

Sawicz also brought up the recent idea of placing advertisements on the district’s school buses and said a second round of discussion will lead to regulations from the state. 

President Conner was wary of the initial implementation of ads on the district’s busses. 

“Let someone else be the guenia pigs on that,” Conner said. “Let them work out the kinks before we explore that.” 

Finally, Principal of Gibbs Elementary School Scott Davies presented the website OnCourse to the board. 

OnCourse is an internet based lesson planner that “help[s] schools nationwide to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of instructional planning and deliveries,” according to their website. 

OnCourse would allow teachers to input their lesson plans into the website and would be able to track how their lessons are overlapping with educational standards in New Jersey and Common Course standards, Davies said. 

Davies said local districts Harrington Park and Moonachie have already started using OnCourse and “there isn’t a teacher or administrator with anything bad to say about it.” 

Over the course of this year, Davies said he hopes to identify approximately 100 teachers across the four schools in the district to test out the service before making it mandatory next year. 

After Davies concluded his discussion on OnCourse, the board closed the meeting to the public to discuss a legal matter. 

The Board of Education will meet again in a work session on Tuesday, Sept. 6 and a regular meeting on Monday, Sept. 19.