Washington work session spotlights pilot to digitize high school transcripts

The House Education Committee heard a work‑session briefing on efforts to digitize high‑school transcripts in Washington, a project presenters said could speed college admissions, ease transfers between districts and reduce clerical burdens on counselors and registrars.

The work session on digital transcript exchange, led by Melissa Beard of the Council of Presidents and including K‑12 staff and higher‑education enrollment managers, outlined a pilot project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and run through the Washington School Information Processing Cooperative that is building a structured digital file to replace PDF transcript images.

Committee chair Rep. Santos opened the session before presenters described the current process as complex and prone to delay. "We eat data. And so we like data, but we do not like files," said Jens Larsen, associate vice president for enrollment management at Eastern Washington University, summarizing a frequent complaint in higher education that PDF transcripts force manual re‑entry of information into campus systems.

Why it matters: Presenters told lawmakers that PDFs and paper transcripts add steps — students, counselors and registrars repeatedly request, send and re‑enter information — and that eliminating the PDF image and instead sharing structured data would speed review and…