Robert Rosen

Robert Rosen, who teaches Advanced Placement physics at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Fla., grew weary of wondering if his paper supply was going to be cut off from year to year.

So, about six years ago, he scanned all of the information he hands out which would amount to something like 200,000 copies for all of his classes and put it on compact discs.

"The kids just loved the CD," he said. "They just warmed up to the idea immediately."

If there's something Rosen wants to distribute to students during the school year that wasn't included in the initial disc, he puts it on his Web site as a PDF.

Rosen has been trying to spread the paperless word among fellow teachers. He thinks it might be an easier sell as schools continue to cut spending.

"It might be that necessity is the mother of invention in this case," he said.

Robert Rosen, a physics teacher at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland who was part of a group that studied school schedules, said there is no one-size-fits-all format for class schedules. What works in one school, he said, may not work elsewhere.

"You could have a schedule that's phenomenal in one school but it's not going to meet the needs of students in another," Rosen said.

Changing class schedules could be tricky for teachers, who would have to rewrite curricula to stretch lesson plans from half a year to a full year. They also would have to adjust their teaching methods to fit 90 minutes of classwork into a 55-minute slot, Rosen said.

"It's not a trivial change to make," he said.

Robert Rosen

Robert Rosen, who teaches 11th-grade physics, has found it to be a difficult subject for many students.

"I am showing students how to do quantitative analysis," said Rosen, a teacher at Stoneman Douglas.

Robert Rosen, who teaches 11th-grade physics, has found it to be a difficult subject for many students.

"I am showing students how to do quantitative analysis," said Rosen, a teacher at Stoneman Douglas.