Digitized and Disaster-proof K–12 Records at Helena Public Schools

Helena High School neighbors Capital High School in the Helena Public School District, working separately but cooperatively to serve their community. Historically, managing student requests was a heavily fragmented process because student records were physically housed at separate locations, and individual files had to be processed at each respective school. 

Staff had to find the physical copy of a record, certify it, and then mail or fax it out. Because most colleges and employers didn’t accept faxes at the time, paper and postage added up, and the district was stuck with a slow, pricey workflow.

To complicate matters, requests could only be accepted by mail or through in-person visits since the schools are unable to take orders over the phone. The turnaround time from receiving a request to dropping it in the mail depended entirely on when a student graduated. For a recent graduate, the turnaround was relatively quick. For older alumni, the records lived exclusively on microfiche. Helena High School lacked a microfiche reader, so staff members would frequently drive over to Capital High School just to look up a legacy file.

While an individual transcript typically took office staff at least an hour to process, the actual delivery timeline depended on the speed of incoming and outgoing postal mail; it could take up to three weeks before a student actually received their official record.

When the district evaluated its processes, leaders recognized that records management in physical filing cabinets didn’t match modern student expectations. Alumni needed a quick and simple way to track and share their credentials—just like the digital standard they experienced during their education.

The true turning point, however, was the hard reality of environmental risk. When a frozen water pipe burst directly above Capital High’s offices, it soaked paper and microfiche records dating back before 1998. Shortly after, a devastating fire at Helena High caused $3.2 million in damage, coming close enough to terrify the staff. “If the drawers of microfiche even got warm, they would be just a plastic block, and the paper would be in ashes. That would be of no value to anyone. We knew that we had to do something about it,” said former registrar of Helena High School, Patsy Althof.

These close calls shifted the conversation from purely seeking a localized printing vendor to finding a partner to help them get their records ready for the future. Consolidating these separate, high-risk workflows into a single, cloud-backed platform was the only way to safeguard records and build long-term institutional resilience.

To shake off the old paper weight, Helena Public School District teamed up with Parchment by Instructure to build a digital and modern process for their student records management. The web portals at both high schools now link directly to an online ordering platform, which syncs right up with their PowerSchool Student Information System (SIS). Paper-shuffling is long gone because confirming that a transcript is current and free of fines is just a quick check in the portal. Helena High even set up an iPad station out front of the registrar’s office, so walk-up students can submit their requests on-campus on their own time.

During the rollout, the Parchment team regularly huddled with school leaders to keep everyone on track and ensure the whole technical transition went without a hitch. The result was a dual-pathway system for every single graduate: an instant, shareable digital transcript alongside a beautiful physical keepsake.

The team also tackled long-term data preservation. With Parchment Scan & Index, two people from each high school went to work rescuing legacy alumni history. They systematically saved decades of student data from a legacy SASI server, then scanned, indexed, and uploaded those water-damaged microfiche files and delicate paper documents straight into the cloud. The fragile physical archive became permanently protected in a searchable database.

By swapping out clunky, manual mail-in processes for an automated system, the district eliminated the expensive paperwork of the past.  

A single transcript in the past could have eaten up an hour of staff time. Now, walk-up students using the iPad station regularly receive confirmation that their transcripts have been sent within 10 minutes. Thanks to live tracking, if a former student calls to check on an application, staff can instantly verify exactly when the receiving university downloaded the file.  

On the database side, the project helped future-proofing the district's history against unexpected disasters. With years of data loaded into Parchment for safekeeping, the superintendent gave the team the green light to keep charging ahead with modern record-keeping.  

Former students can place orders anytime from anywhere, while third-party background check and employment companies enjoy an online experience to grab graduation verifications. Universities now receive their preferred digital documents, and district staff have smoother workflows and assurance in secure records. But most importantly, the learners, depending on safe and delivered records, can quickly and easily take their next steps.