The progress report has been a way to see where students are in their classes and how to improve while they still have time for as long as I can remember. But lately, the fidelity of these documents has declined. After progress reports are published, they take weeks to get out to everyone school wide.

By the time we get our progress reports, the information is no longer accurate. Why are we spending money on thousands of sheets of paper to print the reports out on? The teachers take time out of their class periods passing out these inaccurate progress reports.

Some may recall the paper shortage earlier this school year that our county endured. We need this paper for worksheets, tests, registration forms, service hour forms, and so many more documents. Is it really worth using valuable budget money to print grades that could have changed drastically since the date of the report’s publication? Printer ink is expensive, as well. All these materials could be used to print out proper amounts of work for classes. Our school is trying to take a green initiative and cut down on waste. The progress reports contradict that.

The use of this paper isn’t helping our planet’s health, either. Our school alone had 2,445 students last school year. That’s 9,780 progress reports printed a year. That’s only one of 205 schools in the county, which in total educates about 125,136 students. In FY 2015, we have a budget of $1.795 billion, according to the PGCPS website. We shouldn’t be spending so much money on paper that is used to print inaccurate information.

It would be smarter to convert to a paperless, online progress report. We use SchoolMax to check our short-term grades often. Why not use it for this as well? If it doesn’t have to go through the long process of being printed, sorted and distributed, then the information would be much more accurate. Putting the information online ensures that the information gets to each student personally.

If you’re like me, and you like your privacy, you won’t need to worry about your fellow students asking you what grades you have or comparing your grades to theirs. Students can’t simply read their grades and throw away the paper, and your grades will be much more confidential.

Technology advancement is on the rise, and increasing in remarkable amounts. The environment’s health gets worse every day. At this point, publishing paperless progress reports is the most logical decision we could make.