The school is going paperless in many ways: all freshman received their own personal laptops, teachers are passing out less worksheets, and many assignments and even quizzes are being completed online.

When asked about how she felt about the school going paperless, Elizabeth Mulcahy, a history teacher at WAHS said, “The school does waste a lot of paper, but going paperless is like turning on a light switch and we need to lower it.”  She suggests that instead of trying to go paperless all at once, it needs to be more gradual and we need to allow the school to get used to it. Mulcahy uses a lot of handouts.  “Freshmen are looking at articles online with their new laptops, and with my sophmore class I am more paper free than I am with my junior class.” With her sophomores she is not printing out the notes from Blackboard, homework is being turned in online and some quizzes are completed on Blackboard. “This year I am not giving juniors textbooks,” she said; however, she is giving out more handouts to that class.

Wally Adesina, a science teacher has his own opinion on the subject.  He agreed with Mulcahy that the school should not go paperless one hundred percent, “Teachers still need to do outdoor activities and you can not do that on a laptop,” he said.  His classes use laptops for gizmos and he shows a lot of powerpoints, but he still prints those out to give to his students.  Adesina said that, “Students must write something down to learn.”  Adenina likes having all the freshmen getting laptops because he does not have to sign up for a laptop cart, but in the classes where there is a mix of freshmen and sophomores, the sophomores do not have laptops and that is a problem.  “The school should provide the money for all students to have a laptop.”

Bobbi Hughes, one of the school’s vice principals said that the school is moving in a paperless direction.  This year the school’s budget was cut by five percent, but the school is saving money because all of the money from postage and paper that is saved is going toward instruction.  Western is not the only school going paperless, other schools in the county are heading in the same direction.  Hughes says that a few parents and students have complained, but those who did will have letters, instead of emails, sent to them.  Hughes says that it is really just a personal preference.

In a county press release about the school going paperless, Dr. Billy Haun said, “Both objectives are important. We want to save every dollar we can, but at the same time, we’d like to make it easier for parents to be more involved on a more frequent basis with their child’s education.”  The press release also states that they will use Blackboard and Parent Portal from a student’s classes to student meal accounts.  It also states that Elementary School, Middle Schools and High Schools will be doing this.