I recently decided to take a look at some statistics for schools to aid in the decision of providing electronic communication to home and community. I really want to encourage e-communication that ptsamail.com’s Elist Service and Blogs provide to its community of users and potential users. According to some statistics I found on the “Digest of Education Statistics” website, the majority of homes with children have 1-2 children under the age of 18. Digging a little deeper and calculating the statistics provided by this source as well as the 2006 American Community Survey data, there are 36,466,000 families with children in the United States. Now to research how many sheets of paper produced in one tree. I found two sites, hubspot.com and howstuffworks.com. In performing this research, the average tree (remember it all depends on height, diameter, and tapering) produces approximately 80,500 sheets of paper. To finish my calculations, I took the total families with children multiplied the newsletter size (2 sheets of paper per newsletter) using front and back printing and then mutiplying a very conservative figure of producing 2 newsletters per year. Taking this total and dividing by the sheets of paper per tree produced a figure of the number of trees destroyed in one school year.

36,466,000 x (2 sheets x 2 times per year) =145,864,000

145,864,000/80,500=1,812 trees per year destroyed

Financially, I looked at the figure for producing a black and white copy sheet per/page using a front and back print. In my research I found where a good figure was 0.038 cents/sheet. Therefore, to calculate costs of the paper production:

145,864,000 x 0.038 = $5,542,832 in annual expenses 

If the average school size was 2000 students, a school’s PTA/PTO organization will spend in paper copy print:

2000 x 4 (2 sheets twice a year) x 0.038= $304

Therefore, you could have our service at the same cost but the ability to communicate more often, more efficient and environmentally conscious.  More important provide direct information for current news. I have not even calculated the volunteer hour difference.  Change your mode of communication. Get started today with E-communication using ptsamail.com Elist Manager, Email Management, and Blogs!

Technology Use on the Rise!

Technology
14.2 million
Number of computers available for classroom use in the nation’s 114,700 elementary and secondary schools as of the 2005-2006 school year; that works out to one computer for every four students. (Source: Upcoming Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007)

100%
Percentage of public schools with Internet access as of fall 2003.

83% and 43%
Percentage of children ages 3 to 17 using a computer and the Internet, respectively, at school as of fall 2003.

75%
The percentage of children ages 3 to 17 accessing the Internet in fall 2003 — whether at home, school or elsewhere — to complete school assignments. This was the most common reason for children to use the Internet.

66%
The percentage of children ages 3 to 17 using a computer at home in fall 2003 to complete school assignments. This was the second most common home computer use for children, behind playing games.

These are good incentives to reconsider your mode of communication. Order ptsamail.com now and see how you can improve your lines of communication between home, school, and community!