Passed by the Board of Education in January, the Super Intendent’s 2025-2026 budget makes several changes inside Fairfield Public Schools for the coming school year. The budget includes “strategic adjustments aimed at reducing long-term printing and copying costs while improving efficiency.”

In fact, the budget is taking all printers from classrooms in all schools, including Fairfield Ludlowe High School. While at first this change was to be implemented for the coming school year, this Friday, February 14th,** the printers of Fairfield Ludlowe High School will be ripped out of classrooms. This comes with a few days notice, leaving teachers scrambling to adjust to the new reality.

Not only will this slow down classes, it will completely change the way the students of Fairfield public schools will learn, for the worse. To students, all this change says is the administration does not care about our learning. 

After the pandemic, and the screen time that came with it, paper learning served as a way to escape the endless maze of online learning. But now, being forced to stay on computers, we are reverting back to screen-based learning. 

The budget proposal claims that the “district anticipates net savings of $50,500 in the first year of implementation.” This is only a fraction of the budget cut—one that will severely impact students. While budget cuts are important and needed, the manner the printers are being taken is abrupt and unexplained, especially to students.

The idea is that by reducing the amount of printers—making communal ones around the building—less money will be spent. Yet, classroom printers allow for both teachers and students to print important documents and assignments. Additionally, not all students have access to printers at home. The printers in classrooms allow them to access resources they would not be able to otherwise. 

Having to print confidential documents, teachers will now have to leave their students unattended and face the risk of other people seeing confidential information. Teachers with younger students will not be able to simply leave the room to go copy or print. 

The environmental impact of printers, and the amount of paper they consume, is clear. Despite that, the removal of the printers, and their potential disposal could undermine this. 

If the administration is in such a rush to get rid of the printers, why not make a better phasing-out program to allow teachers and students to adjust to the new system? How do teachers, who can’t leave their students alone in the classroom, print documents? 

Students at Ludlowe feel confused about the decision. Senior Jack Emra shares that “the removal of the printers so abruptly in the middle of the year creates way too harsh of a transition for teachers and students who may have no other way to print what they need.” He adds that “while online resources can be very effective, the benefits that we lose from using paper for learning are far too great.”

Senior Dylan Kennedy worries about her mental health and screen time. She comments that “even with proven research on the negative health effects of excessive screen time and complaints about the overuse of technology by teens, the district decides to remove printers in the name of saving money? They are actively condemning us to eight hour days on screens, and then wonder why the mental health and cognitive abilities of students are decreasing.”

This chaotic change in the middle of the school year will leave students and teachers alike struggling to navigate a new reality. Email or call the Fairfield Board of Education at [email protected] (copying the BOE at [email protected]) or (203) 255-8277 to share your experiences.

**Since publication, the date of removal for Fairfield Ludlowe printers has changed from Friday, February 14th, 2025 to a date that has yet to be determined.**