Move over “the dog ate my homework,” another excuse just might be taking your place “my printer wasn’t working.”

Along with several new changes in the CHS community such as the stricter cell phone rules and the restriction on baked goods, another development has taken effect teachers are now encouraging students to print homework, worksheets and other items from Edline instead of printing out hard copies for their students. Although this change is clearly using the technological advancements of today, some students find that it is not only extremely contradictory to recent policies on material requirements, but that it is does not make complete and effective use of the Internet-based advances that are currently available.

According to Michael Carroll, the head of the social studies department, the issue of why this new development is occurring is much simpler and less problematic than students might think. The true reasoning is not that the school can no longer afford to buy enough paper, but that the school’s constantly malfunctioning copy machines are no longer able to support curriculums that require such large amounts of paper.
Another central concern among students is that having to print work at home contradicts the recently implemented county policy that prohibits teachers from requiring students to purchase supplies outside of school. This new paper initiative begs the question of whether making students print assignments at home is technically requiring them to spend money on buying more printing materials such as paper and ink in order to obtain their assignments.

Students, teachers and parents are more than aware of the expenses needed to supply a fully functional printer. Needless to say, the constant printing of assignments at home is not only “requiring” students to buy materials outside of school, but it will also add to the already expensive cost of maintaining a home printer.
Although this new method of receiving assignments is a step in the right direction, there are other solutions that could easily resolve the conflict between the inability to print at school and the expenses of printing at home.

With websites such as turnitin.com, where students are allowed to turn in homework electronically, and listed e-mail addresses of each teacher on the WCHS website, there is no reason not to initiate a fully electronic way of communicating between teachers and their students. Assignments could be posted on Edline, completed electronically, with the exception of math assignments, and sent to teachers via the internet, eliminating the issue of printing all together.
This simplification would simultaneously appease the school’s inability to provide paper assignments, the student’s desire to minimize their own printing expenses and the issue of environmentalism that encourages the production of less paper.

Although CHS should be commended for finally making use of the vast technological resources available today, more time should be spent making sure that all policies or initiatives are consistent with one another, that the student point of view is taken into account and that the most efficient strategies are used. With the creation of new policies for sending and receiving assignments, CHS could have minimized the absurdly large amounts of paper used by both students and teachers alike, but instead it has only changed the location of paper use from the classroom to student homes.