Paper Chase: High Costs Put Schools In Bind Educators Learning A Lesson In Conserving And Recycling

In Kim Conigliaro’s first-grade class at Ponderosa Elementary School, each sheet of handwriting paper is sliced into several pieces.

That way, numerous students use a single piece of paper.

In Nancy Colburn’s fourth-grade class at Hayden Meadows Elementary School, students often fit three days’ worth of assignments onto one sheet of paper. And the teacher frequently prints her parents newsletters on the backs of pages that already have been used.

“I am trying to print as many things as I can on previously used paper,” she said this week.

Around the country, paper has doubled in price over the last year, hitting schools in one of their most vulnerable places.

Educators are digging deep into their pockets to pay for the paper they depend on, while teachers on the front lines are redoubling their efforts to conserve and recycle.

“We really try to watch our paper usage,” said Sandi DeWitte, secretary at Hayden Meadows Elementary School. “We don’t just throw paper away like we used to.”

A stroll through any grade school shows just how much educators depend on paper. Red, green and yellow construction paper turns into pumpkins at Halloween, turkeys at Thanksgiving and Santa Claus at Christmas.

Copy machines consume paper at a voracious rate: tests, work sheets, spelling lists, letters to parents, field trip announcements.

The Post Falls School District is a prime example of what the price hikes mean to schools.

For the 1993-94 school year, the district paid $15.70 for a case of white paper, said Dick Harris, superintendent.

For the 1994-95 school year, the district paid $29.53. This year, it paid $42 per case of paper.

The Coeur d’Alene School District bought 320 fewer cases of white paper this year than it did last year because of the price increase, said Dave Teater, assistant superintendent.

Terry Rinaldi, business manager of the Kellogg School District, said the price increases also are reflected in the cost of textbooks.

Textbooks that once cost $35 cost $50 this year, she said.

Industry officials say a boom in the global economy, combined with a slowdown in the number of paper plants being built, has driven paper prices up sharply.

The paper market last boomed in 1989, and companies rushed to build plants. But the recession began just as many of those plants started operating, causing prices to plummet.”We invested a lot in capacity because the economy was very good, and then we went in the tank,” said Barry Polsky, spokesman for the American Forest and Paper Association, a trade group in Washington.

“So now we have to pay off the loans we took out to open those plants” instead of building new ones, an industry spokesman said.In constant 1994 dollars, copier paper cost an average of $1,028 a ton in 1989, $700 a ton in 1992 and about $1,160 this year, said Harold Cody, a San Francisco analyst who publishes the Pulp and Paper Forecaster newsletter.

Although North Idaho teachers say they always have tried to conserve paper, they say the price jump has caused them to intensify their efforts.

“I’m definitely more aware of the overuse of paper,” Colburn said earlier this week.

A drawer in her Hayden Meadows classroom holds sheets of paper ready to be “recycled.” By “recycled,” she means the paper has been used on one side and now will be used on the other. The children often use the blank side to draw pictures with markers.

Rather than printing numerous work sheets, Conigliaro, the Ponderosa Elementary teacher, uses a large piece of chart paper to do the work in front of the entire class at one time.

She also slices construction paper into small squares so the children waste less when cutting and pasting.

Despite the budget difficulties, Colburn says she sees a positive side to the careful use of paper.

“I hope it means we’re saving more trees,” she said. “I think we should all look at how we use paper.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: PAPER JAM Post Falls schools paid $15.70 for a case of white paper in 1993-94. That has increased to $42 this school year.