If It Isn't Broken

There is an expression that says "if it isn't broken, don't fix it". I came across a perfect example of that, this week. A few high schools in my county offer Continuing Education courses for adults. These courses have been ongoing for about forty years and have had a wonderful turnout. Last September, the "powers that be" decided to go green. Instead of sending out the course catalog via mail, they sent out a postcard instead. The postcard said to go online to read the entire course guide. The sign up form could be printed from that site. Well, you guessed it. No one signed up for any courses. The reason must have been that the target audience is not comprised of people who find it easy to navigate the web. When the paper catalog arrived in the mail, they would look over it a few times, and pull out the registration form. Since it is online, it is more difficult to scroll the descriptions and even harder to find the correct page to print the application. Most senior citizens do not know how to download a PDF file. The administration would not acknowledge that they made an error and sent out the postcards again this Spring. Again, no one signed up. The trips that used to be waiting list only were now cancelled. It is sad to see this program falter. Maybe this Fall someone will go back to the old fashioned way. Sometimes progress just slows down the works.