Achieve grant helps CHS educators save time

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer

Columbia High School teachers considered time spent at the copy machine as time wasted.

Sometimes the machines have mechanical problems, other times there are lines of people waiting to use them.

“So much of the teacher’s day is spent doing things that aren’t actually teaching,” said Scott Stornetta, a Columbia math teacher who, along with some of his students, came up with a solution called “ScanStation.”

Since September, a small but growing number of faculty members are using a mostly automated system that makes copies of the tests, quizzes and other printed materials they need.

All teachers need to do is send an email with a portable-document format of what needs printing, and volunteers from the Achieve Foundation, a local nonprofit that supports the public school system, take it from there.

Every school day, an Achieve volunteer comes to school between 2 and 3:30 p.m. to make the copies, then sends an email to the teachers to tell them the job is done.

The volume of paperwork varies daily, from a couple hundred pages to several thousand.

Art teacher Elizabeth Schwartz, one of about a dozen faculty members using ScanStation, said she is putting to good use the time she otherwise would have spent at the copy machine.

“I use the time to prep my room and focus on instruction instead of being up to my armpits fishing bits of paper out of paper jams in the machines,” she said. “I don’t miss the black smears of ink on my clothes.”

Stornetta drew his inspiration from a comment by the superintendent regarding his goal to make South Orange-Maplewood the best diverse suburban district in the nation.

Tongue partly in cheek, Stornetta said he thought it only made sense to have the best workplace, in order to attract and retain the best faculty in the nation.

So he and four other teachers formed a committee and came up with a series of problems that needed solutions. Based on a survey of Columbia faculty, they found that having to use the copiers was a pain.

“We felt that if we could increase teacher time on task by reducing the ‘administrivia’ of workload burden that has little to do with directly teaching and helping students learn, then we could create a much better faculty workplace,” Stornetta said. “Teachers would be happier, but they also would be more productive.”

To find the remedy, Stornetta looked closely.

“If you really want to come up with a solution that doesn’t just sound good but actually gets used, then you really have to understand what it is that the teachers are trying to accomplish, and why it is they use copiers to do it,” he said.

If it sounds like Stornetta likes to analyze things, it’s because he does. With a doctorate in physics from Stanford University, he worked in the private sector prior to teaching. One job was as a researcher at Bell Corp.

For this project, Stornetta got some of the best and brightest young minds involved. Students in his advanced math class collected and analyzed data and designed the solution. As part of their work, they interviewed and observed teachers at the copiers to understand their individual experiences.

But to turn a concept into a solution, Stornetta needed money.

To buy the necessary high-speed scanners and laptops, he applied for a grant from the Achieve Foundation. The organization donated not only $7,553, but also parent volunteers, he said.

“It’s been such a great help to the teachers. The teachers have been so thankful and grateful for the help, so it’s one of those feel-good volunteer positions” said Lindsay Scott, a Columbia mom who organizes the volunteers and is a volunteer herself.

Looking ahead, Stornetta said more projects are in the pipeline. In the meantime, his students are working on further automating the copying project. The goal is to eventually have all 100 CHS teachers using it.

“But it’s really neat, because the students are in there doing what would normally be done by people with a lot more experience,” said Jerry Kaiser, who volunteers to help Stornetta in the classroom. “They’re analyzing problems, they’re understanding the way people interact with processes.

“They’re basically learning to engineer something,” Kaiser continued, “but they’re not engineers yet.”
More volunteers are needed. Interested volunteers may call Scott at 762-5227 or send her email at lindscott@verizon.net.

Philip Sean Curran can be reached at 908-686-7700, ext. 116, or at newsrecord@thelocalsource.com

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