Chicopee schools cut paper usage

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Students in Chicopee, Massachusetts, will return to school this year to find that their student handbook will no longer be as thick – in fact, it won't exist in it's physical form at all. 

The 93-page handbook that is sent to students' homes annually will be moving online this school year, according to The Republican. Instead parents will receive a one-page form, which they can use to request the traditional handbook in 22 locally spoken languages. 

"The handbook will be online and kids will get a letter asking parents is they want to access the handbook copy online or if they want a written copy," Superintendent Richard Rege Jr. told the newspaper. 

While the handbook has been online for years, the school had previously printed off 8,000 copies of it per year for students in the district's elementary, middle and high school systems. 

Some families have limited access to computers, and they will likely need a physical copy of the book. But printing 7,000 fewer copies of the handbook, as Rege predicted according to The Republican, will certainly save money and time. 

In fact reducing paper use and switching to a content management system to handle documents is a great way to make any school – or company, government entity, or nearly anything else – more efficient. The most obvious savings will come from investing in less paper.

The cost of ink will also drop – important because printer ink is very expensive, according to Consumer Reports. In fact, the cheapest printer inks cost around $13 per ounce, while the most expensive will run somewhere around $75 an ounce. 

School Committee members, whose meetings went paperless two years ago, are in favor of the decision, The Republican noted. 

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