Our Paper Records Were Potentially Toxic and Weighed Nearly 2,500 Pounds

by Jim Shields @enrollsmart


In many states, childcare providers are required to maintain child admission records and other child enrollment documents for 3-7 years after a child has left the provider's facility.  I'm not sure about other centers, but 5 years worth of records for the centers we operated took up a lot of space and they were very heavy.  

I'm sure that most center owners/directors can attest to how challenging it can be to maintain child files in file cabinets and to keep active files separated from the files of children who have left the center.  However, what many centers do not realize is the health and financial effects extent of maintaining paper enrollment records at their facility.

Before we decided to make our enrollment process paperless, we had a significant number of paper child enrollment files maintained on site.  I noticed that when we created our paperless enrollment process, the amount of noticeable dust in our facilities declined significantly.  

Without being too scientific, one can assume that inhaling dust from decomposing paper and ink can't be all that good for children or humans in general. The average childcare center is licensed for 60 children and if paper enrollment records are maintained for 5+ years after a child has left the facility, this paper file maintenance can get very expensive and, there is likely to be more and more dust from present as the result of decomposing paper and ink.

By using a website and creating a paperless enrollment process, not only did we save hundreds or even thousands of dollars in paper and ink, we significantly reduced the amount of potential paper dust present in our facilities.  



Jim Shields is the Enterprise Architect for Enrollsmart and, he has more than 15 years of childcare center ownership and management experience.

Enrollsmart supplies interactive websites digital enrollment forms specific to each state which allows centers to save thousands of dollars each year.   To learn more about Enrollsmart, visit our information page at https://www.enrollsmart.net/childcare_software/index.html 

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