Our regular sets have been affected by the shortage of paper around our school. Teachers have to modify plans by making more assignments online rather than pen and paper. We’ve seen a mix of different colored paper instead of the usual blank white we’re used to. So what actually happened? Why does it seem like the whole stockage of paper at Harriton has gone missing?

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of meeting with Mr. Warshawer, our principal, in discussing the paper shortage incident. At the end of the meeting he said that “One of our values here at our school is growth. And, I think, part of growth is paying attention to results and being curious about how you can get better results.”

Part of the paper shortage, and anything relating to our supplies at school, is the discretionary budget from the district, in which some of that is used for paper. Every month, Mr. Warshawer prints a report of how much paper we’ve used in that month, weighing it against the amount we’re ordering. This way we can control the supply and demand. With a school of 1400-1450 people (students and staff included) and anyone with an ID having access to printers and copiers, the question is, do we have enough paper that is meeting the needs of everyone in the building?

Mr. Warshawer proposed multiple reasons why our paper has been cut short. First, this year especially, teachers have been moving to pen and paper assignments out of avoidance of AI. If everything is manually written away from the computer, then teachers can avoid students plagiarizing and cheating since ChatGPT and other generators are at our fingertips (literally). 

Second, we have a good deal of paper waste due to the fact that our printers and copiers don’t print online PDFs properly; anything printed from that PDF will just be gibberish. As you can imagine, that’s not usable, and that amount of paper goes to waste.

Thirdly, we have certain subjects that need more paper than others because of home-grown curriculums. For example, in the math department, textbooks are not used, so the math teachers print a lot of material. Finally, our school size continues to grow each year. With each expansion of students, the need for paper goes up. 

We have taken steps to save as much paper as possible, starting with staff members. Mr. Warshawer has asked staff to perform certain tasks. Using the copiers instead of printers, for example, uses up less ink, saving more money for paper. Moreover, downloading PDFs from Adobe Acrobat ensures that the format and words will actually show up instead of being unusable, once printed. Other steps, such as limiting colored ink, double side printing, and keeping paper in the respected department rooms will all help to contribute to ending the paper shortage. 

From the range of teachers I interviewed (all different subjects), on a scale from 1-10, 1 being the worst, there was a range of 4-8 in terms of the paper shortage effects on them. Mr. Warshawer also said a range of 4-7 for how bad the paper shortage is (it’s a range because the paper shortage varies based on the week). I know the paper shortage has affected me in several ways: it was harder to track my answers in math class since we did our assignment partially online, and in bio class, we got to “skip” an assignment while paying close attention to the video. People are being affected by the paper shortage in many different ways, but hopefully it will end soon.