After months of jams and breakdowns, frustrated teachers were delighted by the three new copiers that arrived May 7.

“It’s like we’ve died and gone to heaven,” said math resource teacher Russ Rushton.

The school has three copiers—in the main office, the second-floor teachers’ lounge and the math office.

The school wasn’t scheduled for new copiers until the summer, but the process was expedited after complaints about frequent jams and breakdowns, paraeducator Blenda LeGrande said.

The new copiers are more technologically advanced than their predecessors.

“The ones we have now are lightyears ahead,” LeGrande said. “We probably will get a jam here and there because of the paper, but hopefully we won’t have anywhere near the problems we had with the other ones.”

MCPS copiers often jam because the county buys refurbished machines from major businesses instead of buying them new, LeGrande said. In addition, most teachers store paper on shelves instead of in boxes, allowing pages to gain moisture and stick together. When jams occur, teachers often neglect to report them, leaving maintenance unaware of the problem and class materials unprinted.

For now, at least, the copiers stand ready to print the thousands of pages that the staff requires.

“It is the neatest thing since sliced bread,” Rushton said. “This is Christmas in May, that’s all there is to it.”