Recently an e-mail was sent to all the teachers at my school, informing them of the high paper usage on our campus. According to the e-mail, in the first 9 weeks of school, we had used 291 cases of paper, totalling approximately 1.4 million sheets of paper. When I first saw that number, I was astonished. But then after conferring with a few other teachers, we put that in perspective. We have 2,600 students on our campus. Each student has 6 classes. We've had 43 instructional days so far. Crunching the numbers, the result is that each class gives every student, every period, approximately 1.6 sheets of paper. Now, granted, classes like PE and such may not use as much paper as, say, an English class. But to me, 1.6 pieces of paper per day does not sound unreasonable. So that got me thinking. What is the problem with this level of paper usage?
First, I hope it's not being used as a measure of the quality of the teachers here. Do bad teachers use more paper than good teachers? Actually, maybe. But not necessarily. And in order to draw this conclusion, it must be known who in fact is using paper, and in what quantity. This is unknowable given that teachers are not issued personal printer codes. If good teachers use less paper, why? Is it because they use electronic resources? I'd love to, but the only internet connected computer in my classroom is the one I use. Tablets? Nah. We can't trust our students with those. So how do I assess my students' learning without paper? Sure, I do lots of activities that don't require them to write something down, but when it comes time to put a grade in the gradebook, I have to be able to defend the grades I give. I need documentation. I need proof. So I give them a test, worksheet, or some other intellectual torture. Paper usage cannot determine the quality of a teacher, only their methods, and then only in a limited way.
Second, I don't believe it's related to environmental concerns. We live in East Texas. We're surrounded by trees. Pine trees. Trees that people hate. And around here, people think Green Peace means taking a stroll in the pasture on a sunny day.
Third, I can't imagine that anyone thinks we're giving our students too much work. I've never heard of any school telling their teachers to give kids less work.
My conclusion is that this is a budgeting issue. Which I totally understand. Times are hard. State money for schools has decreased. The district finally gave their teachers raises in the amount that they would have been getting had they gotten their annual increases (which amount to about a 1% increase). I appreciate that. I really do. So I'm not saying we shouldn't watch our dollars and cents. However, we recently spent $100,000 on a fence surrounding our school. A fence which, incidentally, has served to make it more difficult to get in and out of our campus (for evil-doers, but mostly for the staff and students). We just put new astroturf on our practice field. We recently built a brand-new field house. But we're straining over the cost of paper? Seems odd. But more importantly, unless it can be determined that paper usage has reached unacceptable levels campus wide (which it has not), or that certain teachers are using too much paper (which can not be done), why is it the concern of the teachers to be mindful of budget issues? I'm more than happy to do my part to conserve paper when possible. But do I really have to bear the burden of keeping my campus financially solvent, in addition to the stresses implicit in my role as a teacher? Sorry, but I don't have any spare brain cells to designate for this purpose.
There are solutions to this issue, but they come with many up front costs that will be major downers for people. Yes, I'm talking about integrating technology into the classroom. But when you don't allocate funds for that, and don't train your teachers how to implement it, and you haven't created an environment where students understand the role of technology in their education, it's really hard to implement such a thing. Schools do it all the time, with varying degrees of success. Personally, if it were up to me, I would never give a paper handout ever again.
In the mean time, there are a few intermediate steps that could be taken to reduce - slightly - our paper usage.
For example, how about eliminating the 6 mandatory unit tests that the district requires. I print out a class set so they all share, but they average 16 pages (front and back). Times 6 tests, times 35 students, equals 3,360 pieces of paper. These tests are given in the four core subject areas, with approximately 12 teachers each. Plus, we print the answer sheets for each student, so that's about 60,000 pieces of paper just for the answer sheets (2600 students X 6 tests X 4 classes) So in all, this one component of our program, required by the district, eats up nearly 250,000 sheets of paper. These tests are given in addition to the tests that teachers create and administer, which uses up an approximately equal amount of paper. Using technology to administer tests alone would reduce paper usage by nearly half a million pieces.
What's the point? I don't know. It's just another illustration of the inefficiencies of government, due to the misappropriation, or lack, of funding, as well as decisions made at the administrative level. It also illustrates how the effects of those decisions trickle down to folks at ground level. It's frustrating in part because most of it is beyond the control of those who have innovative solutions.
Fun trivia fact: Our usage of paper for the entire year is still less than if one set of Obamacare regulations were printed for each member of Congress.
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