Students Concerned About New Technology Crack Down
www.opschools.org
The Orchard Park Technology Department has placed a cap on students’ printing access. In addition to the limitations on printing, students are no longer able to email one another using their school emails.
Mr. Roth, the Assistant Director of Information Technology for the district, explained the district’s reasoning.
“The Orchard Park Information Technology Department and the District have spent a lot of time and resources in moving our District to a digital environment with the 1:1 Chromebook initiative along with Google Classroom and other digital resources,” said Mr. Roth
It’s great the district is taking this step, seeing as technology has become significantly more important over the period of remote learning. However, one of my main concerns is the reasoning behind the idea of placing “print quotas” on student printing.
In fact, according to Mr. Roth, “What we’ve learned so far is that this has not reduced the amount of unnecessary printing. The objective of enabling “print quotas” is not to prohibit printing, but rather to encourage students to have some accountability in what they are printing. Enforcing a printing limit has benefits to the environment, because it prompts students to reconsider whether it is necessary to print.”
It remains to be seen what kind of impact policies like this one have on the environment.
As high school students, we all have the need to print our assignments. An Orchard Park High School senior decided to speak out on his opinion.
“I understand the district’s reasoning behind this decision, however it is not an action I would have chosen myself because I don’t believe that putting a paper cap on students will change their mindset about printing habits,” said Jacob Cassidy
Along with printing restrictions, the Orchard Park Technology Department has prompted a policy on student emails, which blocks students from being able to email other students through their student mail accounts.
“The idea behind preventing students from emailing each other is to try and reduce unnecessary chats between students that potentially could become distracting. The bigger concern in an electronic world is cyberbullying and the expectation of this policy, and others, is that it will help remediate some of that potential. The District also has a policy implemented that prevents students from emailing outside the District Domain as well as receiving emails from outside,” explained Roth.
An Orchard Park Senior has expressed their opinion on this recent change, “I don’t think restricting student to student email access is a positive approach to this issue,” said Gavin Gocella
Although the district has hopes for these new initiatives to provide a positive impact on students, it is evident that not every student is on board.
