The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

DAYTON-Paula Moisio, business manager for the Dayton School District and President of the Blue Mountain Heritage Society, has been working with the Washington State Archives branch of the Office of the Secretary of State to get the oldest school board minutes and resolutions digitized. The board meeting minutes go all the way back to July, 1903, she said. The resolutions are from the years 2009 going back to 1963, she added.

Moisio said that in March 2011, the Washington State Archivists began to allocate funds for local organizations to have specific records archived. She said the principle behind that is the idea that archiving critical public records is part of a sound records management plan.

Dayton School District was one of thirty-three applicants to receive grants from Washington State Archives, and Moisio said she was able to obtain a grant in the amount of $4,250 for the project.

According to Moisio the documents were located in various places around the district, including the basement storage room, the elementary safe, and the district office. She said meeting minutes were in various forms – from the old journal ledgers, to three-ring binders, and the resolutions were in three-ring binders in the district office.

After arranging the records in chronological order, Moisio packed them in specially approved boxes and a representative took them to Olympia in Sept., 2014. Archivists then began the process of digitizing and microfilming the original documents. They also created an index of each record, she said.

When that process was finished, the project coordinator began uploading the records to digital archives and completed the project in 2015, she said.

"Although the process, from start to finish, was lengthy, it was a pretty smooth process, and the State Archive office was very helpful and courteous throughout the process," Moisio said. "Digitizing records helps to eliminate some of the potential risks due to water damage, fire damage, contamination, and loss of access to the records."

The State retains the original documents, and they are kept in a controlled environment, according to Moisio.

Moisio said there is a link to the archived material on the DSD website, with a step-by-step guide for how to access the information.

Go to http://www.daytonsd.org. and look under the board tab for instructions, or go to: http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/home and enter Dayton School District in the "Search by Keyword" window, then select "Minutes" and "Meeting Records" in the pull-down menu, or "Resolution Records" in the pull-down menu, and enter search criteria.