“We were contracted to provide the technology infrastructure for the new high school and remodel of the middle school,” said Ari Ioannides, BoardDocs President. “He was impressed by our internally developed project-management system and asked if we could do something similar for school board meetings.”

 

The solution provides the public a way to track items from board meetings for their progress, which they were previously unable to do, he said. Ioannides said it takes from 50 percent to 75 percent less time to produce an electronic packet.

 

Typically, a school board meeting has 200-page packets, with 30 percent to 70 percent printed for each meeting, Ioannides said. Once printed, the packets require a courier to deliver them, adding to the carbon footprint.

 

When a change is made electronically, it’s made in all copies at the same time. Having everything online also allows users to search the history easily, Ioannides said.

 

The company is able to get a school district’s system running in one or two months on average, depending on how quickly on-site training can be scheduled. The service allows storage in archives, maintains calendars, tracks strategic goals and generates minutes during meetings, among other offerings. Systems are customized for each organization and training is provided.

 

BoardDocs recently reached a milestone of serving 435 companies and organizations, including school districts. Ioannides said the company has seen accelerated growth recently, particularly in the last year. However, much of the growth stems from time and cost savings as opposed to environmental concerns.

 

Many BoardDocs users see going green as an added benefit, he said.

 

“Board members like the feel of paper,” Ioannides said. “They’re spending money to go green and get LEED certified, requiring zoning be green or have low impact, but still requiring organizations to print out thousands and thousands of sheets of paper.”

 

“For mental and physical surviving, it is crucial that kids in elementary school are fidgety and rock,” Breithecker said. “It is important for their health, attention and concentration. It means they have more overall oxygen supply, higher temperature and more oxygen in their brain.”

 

In an interview at the National School Board Association show, Breithecker explained how hip rotations, on a chair deigned by VS America, can cause the brain to activate neurotrophins, resulting in better concentration.

 

The PantoMove chair, with a 3D rocking mechanism and concave base, allows students to move their hips in patterns: sideways, swivel, and forward and back. Breithecker emphasized the need to eliminate rigid furniture. He said the mechanics of chairs must allow for children’s bodies to be in motion whereby the blood flow is facilitated by the interdependency between movement and brain activity.

 

Dynamic sitting provides students flexibility needed to expend energy and, at the same time, to focus on their work instead of having to focus on how to keep still, according to VS, a company whose history dates back to 1898, when it was formed by the amalgamation of four school-furniture manufacturers.

 

In 1945, major changes after WWII impacted school furniture design as the rigid school bench was pushed into the background and more flexible seating options were sought after. Since then, the trend shows less movement in the classroom increasing significantly. Since 1940, the hours per day students sit has grown, from five up to 10, while the number of hours spent moving has dropped from just near seven hours to less than one hour a day, according to Breithecker.