Dear School District - I am PISSED
And here's why.
x-posted to my IJ account,
Dear Sirs,
I am writing to express my deep concern over the laptop program that is being so aggressively lauded by the board, faculty and staff. If the Board of Education had an email address, I would have included them in this communication as well.
I do not know how this program was developed or how it was decided upon, but I do not believe it was as thoroughly researched as it should have been.
As you will notice by my last name, we don't go to our official laptop roll-out meeting until tomorrow. (Perhaps today by the time you receive and read this.) However, I've talked to enough parents who went to last night's meeting for all my concerns to be heightened rather than alleviated.
I have many questions and concerns, and I was lead to understand that I would not be allowed to voice any of them at tomorrow's meeting, so I am sending them to you now in the hopes that they will be addressed.
Communication:
I am shocked that such a major decision could be made without significant parental input from those of us who have children involved in the program. To leave my family with the frustrating choice of either being on the proverbial hook for $550 out-of-pocket financial responsibility or be 'left behind' if we chose not to allow our children to participate in the program is aggravating.
If I had wanted my twelve-year-old daughter to be responsible for an expensive laptop computer, I would have made necessary arrangements in our personal budget to provide one for her. The same is true for my only slightly more mature fifteen-year-old son.
Even had I chosen to provide them with such equipment, I certainly would never let them haul it around anywhere, let alone back and forth to school on a daily basis.
If my comfortably middle-class family finds this prospect daunting in these economic times, I can only imagine how it will be handled by families in worse circumstances.
Of course, I know the answer to that. Those of us who "can afford it" will be expected to cover for them as well.
Choice of Equipment:
If the school board - after thoughtful discussion and input from affected parents - still thought individual laptop computers were the only way to adequately provide the necessary education, the next consideration ought to have been choice of venue. Again I would respectfully argue that PARENTS ought to have had SOME input into this!
While it is true that Mac/Apple corporation has a segment of rabidly loyal users/followers, it is also true that the greater majority of 'real world' computing will occur on PCs, whether at work or at reputable colleges/universities.
I recognize and even share the belief that Mac is somewhat more 'user-friendly' than PC's, however the over-all benefit to the students in the choice of the Macbook seems questionable. Granted, I'm certain Apple is thrilled to have such access to a new generation of computer users to try and gain a foothold in the market. It leads me to question, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, how many of the people making this decision have stock-holdings in Apple.
I also realize that this choice was 'easier' for the school as the district already uses Macs, but again I question the value of this as well. It might have been a better investment (and less expensive in the long-run!) to upgrade everything at the school to the more 'real-world' oriented PC.
Again, if I were to wish for my children to have the responsibility for a laptop computer, I would have chosen something more generally useful to them in their future endeavors as well as something much less expensive to repair or replace if damaged or stolen.
Liability/financial burden to families:
I consider myself fortunate that we have only two children who will be subjected to these laptops. I know at least two families with four kids in the 7-12 grades. The expectations regarding the return-condition of these computers at the end of the school year are unrealistic, but I am hoping that I have misunderstood the second-hand information.
You realize, of course, that laptops - in the hands of cautious, responsible adults - have, on average, very short life-spans due to accidental breakage. They fall off of laps, or the hinge gets accidentally pinched or broken somehow, or the screens get damaged or they over-heat or the batteries burn out - the list goes on and on.
How are children expected to be more careful and cause less damage than adults?
Are these YOUNG CHILDREN really expected to cart their computer to-and-from school EVERY SINGLE DAY, on the school bus with all the chaos that entails, and still turn in a "like-new" computer back to the school at the end of the school year?
With no allowances for 'normal wear'?
With that being the case, I would be surprised if ANYONE was able to return a computer to you in 'mint' condition, which means every family will be stuck paying $250 per computer. In our case, $500!
That is an enormous burden in these economic times. Particularly when, again, none of us had any "voice" in this decision. I certainly don't know where we will squeeze out that kind of money from our family budget if/when the time comes that we need to pay it.
Let me again point out, back to the venue subject, that a very good, perfectly adequate Dell laptop computer could be bought, brand new, at Best Buy for around $300. An upper-level one can be purchased from their Outlet store for around $500-$600.
How on earth does it benefit me, my children or my children's education for us to be forced to be liable for a deductable that is almost as much as a new computer without having ownership of the computer or choice in what sort of computer I wish to be liable for?
Equipment storage and transportation:
Assuming that my understanding from my friends is correct - the children will be transporting these to-and-from the school EVERY DAY - what arrangements are going to be made so the kids can access their own lockers when they are ready to leave the school?
Case in Point:
The last two years, when my son was in 7th and 8th grades, he went out for several sports that had him practicing right after school until around 5:00. Whatever homework he needed to bring home, he had to have with him when he went to practice, because the hallway doors leading to his locker were locked/sealed and no one was allowed back down that hallway after practice.
Please note - I talked to Mr (superintendent) and also Mr (principal) about this problem and was told that the kids just have to 'ask' the coach or janitor to unlock the door and they can get their stuff. However, the coaches are usually still very busy trying to 'finish' coaching the older kids, the janitor is often nowhere to be found (I've come inside before to help look!) and for those kids who need to catch the activity bus home, there is the very real threat (or at least fear) of being 'left behind' if the bus leaves while they're trying to get to their lockers.
The end result of all this was that my kid was almost never able to bring his trumpet home for practice because it was too big to fit in his gym locker and he couldn't get to the main hallway to get to his larger locker or the band room. Likewise, his backpack full of homework and books is too big to fit in the locker.
So here is what happens instead:
All these kids have their backpacks sitting in random places on the floor or on tables in and around the cafeteria, entryway and gym while they are at practice. Or they are on the floor or on benches in the locker rooms. Sometimes the bags are outside the building propped against the wall. Bags are OFTEN stepped on, shoved aside, knocked off tables, etc.
Is THIS how the kids are supposed to transport an expensive laptop?? What arrangements are being made for these kids to have more ready access to their lockers so the computers can actually be relatively secure?
What about normal 'rowdiness' on the buses? At least once a week my kids report child "x" smacking child "y" with their own backpack or other similar nonsense. Again - how are these laptops supposed to be protected from this sort of 'normal' kid transportation?
If "John Smith" smacks my kid with his own back pack and breaks his laptop, am I responsible for the deductible, or is the "bully" responsible to pay that?
Internet Access:
The big bugaboo. We are a very rural community. Obviously, I have internet access, as does probably the majority of the people in the district. However, for me, it is not reliable access, nor is it 'high speed' access, nor is it something I'm able to 'network' to allow more than one computer to access at a time. Additionally, my provider has extremely restrictive bandwith usage allowances (5 gig up/down loads per month!) Despite all these drawbacks, this is the best plan available to me at my residence.
I know my family is not the only one with extremely limited access.
Presuming that the kids will be expected to do various degrees of online research and the like (that being the main benefit that I can see of the computer access) what is the school going to do to allow more time before and after school in the library for the kids to do their research and homework there? The last two years it was our experience that the kids were aggressively "shooed" out of the school library before 4:00 p.m., when that corridor is then locked and we had all the issues with accessing the locker, getting instruments, etc.
Tech Support:
Another major concern. I lost count of how many times I tried to communicate with teachers last year about assignments, only to be told to "check the website" or "check my blog", only to find that the website was down and therefore none of the links to the blogs were available, either. If the current tech-support department struggled to maintain one master website, how on earth is it going to manage the various concerns and issues from approximately 600 kids with laptops?
Safe and appropriate use:
We have only one computer at home that my kids are allowed to access - on purpose. We have four children altogether, and like all families, our kids have different interests, different activities, etc. It's impossible to monitor what they do on the computer or watch on TV constantly. We have parent controls on the TV and computer and go back through and check 'history' on the computer to make sure they're not surfing where they don't belong.
It will be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for us to manage this level of surveillance on two additional computers, especially when most of that use won't be done at home. What sort of restraints are in place to ensure the kids aren't accidentally landing where they ought not to be while 'surfing'?
General concerns:
Why was it decided to commit to a four-year contract for this program when it is so new and untried? Would it not have been far better to negotiate for a trial period, first and then decide if it worked as well as you hoped? Technology advances so quickly that these brand-spanking-new (and expensive-liability) computers will be 'old' in six months and all but obsolete in twelve to eighteen months.
The laptop Mac computer I'm going to have to insure tomorrow, and carry an additional $250 personal liability for, is not going to be worth half what the school paid for it by the end of the year! If these same computers are going to be used over and over for the next four years (highly unlikely given the extreme fragility of laptops in general), they will be next to worthless by the end of that period.
I understand there were restrictions as to how the school was permitted to use this money. However, as a parent, I would have much, MUCH preferred to have an assurance that my two children would have their OWN text books for ALL of their classes this year - rather than struggle without MATH and SCIENCE textbooks as we did all year last year. I will be seriously displeased if we're saddled with these laptops and still have to struggle with an inadequate supply of textbooks.
Good idea, Weak planning:
In general, I think I understand the underlying foundation of what you are attempting to accomplish here. Kids need to be highly computer literate in this day and age, and it has to be a prestigious thing - particularly for a very small public school district - to be able to brag about providing laptops to every 7-12 student.
However, this really isn't necessarily in the best interest of the students or their families.
Had SH implemented this program for upperclassmen, your Juniors and Seniors, you would have found me to be among your most ardent supporters. These students are actively preparing for college, they are old enough to understand the fragility of the equipment and the burden of responsibility, and many of them have their own vehicles or other means of transport so as not to have to rely on the chaos of the bus system. Of course, I would still personally argue in favor of the more commonly used, less expensive, more easily replaced PC over a Mac, but a computer is a computer and the basic skills of internet usage, research, word processing and the like are similar enough not to make that much difference. The older 'kids' would be much better prepared and more mature to handle this level of responsibility.
If it worked well with the upper grades, the next logical step might have been to gradually include the next lower grade each year until/unless you hit the 'wall' where the risks and problems began to outweigh the benefits and convenience.
As it is now, I think the over-all planning, implementation and detail consideration for this huge project were not as thorough as they ought to have been. Parents ought to have been notified - letters sent home, surveys asking for opinions, input, concerns, etc., before a decision was made.
Please understand that my kids are thrilled with the idea of having their "own" laptops - but then, they aren't the ones that will have to decide what area of the family budget needs to be stretched even thinner when it's time to pay the deductible!
We will be participating, because despite my grave misgivings and profound displeasure, I feel we have no real choice. Yes, I realize that technically we DO have a choice, but neither option is agreeable. I am extremely disappointed in how this was handled, but I hope that my fears will prove groundless, that my questions will be answered, and the obvious problems and obstacles will somehow be resolved or overcome.
If there is such a thing as an email address for the Board, I would appreciate it if you would forward my concerns to that address. Meanwhile, I will be attempting to find mailing addresses for the members of the board to send out snail-mail copies of this.
I will be 'seeing' at least some of you tomorrow during 7th grade orientation for (daughter) and then our acquisition of this new 'prize'.
Thank you for your time.
Me.
Edited names out.
Damn, am I pissed.
x-posted to my IJ account,
Dear Sirs,
I am writing to express my deep concern over the laptop program that is being so aggressively lauded by the board, faculty and staff. If the Board of Education had an email address, I would have included them in this communication as well.
I do not know how this program was developed or how it was decided upon, but I do not believe it was as thoroughly researched as it should have been.
As you will notice by my last name, we don't go to our official laptop roll-out meeting until tomorrow. (Perhaps today by the time you receive and read this.) However, I've talked to enough parents who went to last night's meeting for all my concerns to be heightened rather than alleviated.
I have many questions and concerns, and I was lead to understand that I would not be allowed to voice any of them at tomorrow's meeting, so I am sending them to you now in the hopes that they will be addressed.
Communication:
I am shocked that such a major decision could be made without significant parental input from those of us who have children involved in the program. To leave my family with the frustrating choice of either being on the proverbial hook for $550 out-of-pocket financial responsibility or be 'left behind' if we chose not to allow our children to participate in the program is aggravating.
If I had wanted my twelve-year-old daughter to be responsible for an expensive laptop computer, I would have made necessary arrangements in our personal budget to provide one for her. The same is true for my only slightly more mature fifteen-year-old son.
Even had I chosen to provide them with such equipment, I certainly would never let them haul it around anywhere, let alone back and forth to school on a daily basis.
If my comfortably middle-class family finds this prospect daunting in these economic times, I can only imagine how it will be handled by families in worse circumstances.
Of course, I know the answer to that. Those of us who "can afford it" will be expected to cover for them as well.
Choice of Equipment:
If the school board - after thoughtful discussion and input from affected parents - still thought individual laptop computers were the only way to adequately provide the necessary education, the next consideration ought to have been choice of venue. Again I would respectfully argue that PARENTS ought to have had SOME input into this!
While it is true that Mac/Apple corporation has a segment of rabidly loyal users/followers, it is also true that the greater majority of 'real world' computing will occur on PCs, whether at work or at reputable colleges/universities.
I recognize and even share the belief that Mac is somewhat more 'user-friendly' than PC's, however the over-all benefit to the students in the choice of the Macbook seems questionable. Granted, I'm certain Apple is thrilled to have such access to a new generation of computer users to try and gain a foothold in the market. It leads me to question, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, how many of the people making this decision have stock-holdings in Apple.
I also realize that this choice was 'easier' for the school as the district already uses Macs, but again I question the value of this as well. It might have been a better investment (and less expensive in the long-run!) to upgrade everything at the school to the more 'real-world' oriented PC.
Again, if I were to wish for my children to have the responsibility for a laptop computer, I would have chosen something more generally useful to them in their future endeavors as well as something much less expensive to repair or replace if damaged or stolen.
Liability/financial burden to families:
I consider myself fortunate that we have only two children who will be subjected to these laptops. I know at least two families with four kids in the 7-12 grades. The expectations regarding the return-condition of these computers at the end of the school year are unrealistic, but I am hoping that I have misunderstood the second-hand information.
You realize, of course, that laptops - in the hands of cautious, responsible adults - have, on average, very short life-spans due to accidental breakage. They fall off of laps, or the hinge gets accidentally pinched or broken somehow, or the screens get damaged or they over-heat or the batteries burn out - the list goes on and on.
How are children expected to be more careful and cause less damage than adults?
Are these YOUNG CHILDREN really expected to cart their computer to-and-from school EVERY SINGLE DAY, on the school bus with all the chaos that entails, and still turn in a "like-new" computer back to the school at the end of the school year?
With no allowances for 'normal wear'?
With that being the case, I would be surprised if ANYONE was able to return a computer to you in 'mint' condition, which means every family will be stuck paying $250 per computer. In our case, $500!
That is an enormous burden in these economic times. Particularly when, again, none of us had any "voice" in this decision. I certainly don't know where we will squeeze out that kind of money from our family budget if/when the time comes that we need to pay it.
Let me again point out, back to the venue subject, that a very good, perfectly adequate Dell laptop computer could be bought, brand new, at Best Buy for around $300. An upper-level one can be purchased from their Outlet store for around $500-$600.
How on earth does it benefit me, my children or my children's education for us to be forced to be liable for a deductable that is almost as much as a new computer without having ownership of the computer or choice in what sort of computer I wish to be liable for?
Equipment storage and transportation:
Assuming that my understanding from my friends is correct - the children will be transporting these to-and-from the school EVERY DAY - what arrangements are going to be made so the kids can access their own lockers when they are ready to leave the school?
Case in Point:
The last two years, when my son was in 7th and 8th grades, he went out for several sports that had him practicing right after school until around 5:00. Whatever homework he needed to bring home, he had to have with him when he went to practice, because the hallway doors leading to his locker were locked/sealed and no one was allowed back down that hallway after practice.
Please note - I talked to Mr (superintendent) and also Mr (principal) about this problem and was told that the kids just have to 'ask' the coach or janitor to unlock the door and they can get their stuff. However, the coaches are usually still very busy trying to 'finish' coaching the older kids, the janitor is often nowhere to be found (I've come inside before to help look!) and for those kids who need to catch the activity bus home, there is the very real threat (or at least fear) of being 'left behind' if the bus leaves while they're trying to get to their lockers.
The end result of all this was that my kid was almost never able to bring his trumpet home for practice because it was too big to fit in his gym locker and he couldn't get to the main hallway to get to his larger locker or the band room. Likewise, his backpack full of homework and books is too big to fit in the locker.
So here is what happens instead:
All these kids have their backpacks sitting in random places on the floor or on tables in and around the cafeteria, entryway and gym while they are at practice. Or they are on the floor or on benches in the locker rooms. Sometimes the bags are outside the building propped against the wall. Bags are OFTEN stepped on, shoved aside, knocked off tables, etc.
Is THIS how the kids are supposed to transport an expensive laptop?? What arrangements are being made for these kids to have more ready access to their lockers so the computers can actually be relatively secure?
What about normal 'rowdiness' on the buses? At least once a week my kids report child "x" smacking child "y" with their own backpack or other similar nonsense. Again - how are these laptops supposed to be protected from this sort of 'normal' kid transportation?
If "John Smith" smacks my kid with his own back pack and breaks his laptop, am I responsible for the deductible, or is the "bully" responsible to pay that?
Internet Access:
The big bugaboo. We are a very rural community. Obviously, I have internet access, as does probably the majority of the people in the district. However, for me, it is not reliable access, nor is it 'high speed' access, nor is it something I'm able to 'network' to allow more than one computer to access at a time. Additionally, my provider has extremely restrictive bandwith usage allowances (5 gig up/down loads per month!) Despite all these drawbacks, this is the best plan available to me at my residence.
I know my family is not the only one with extremely limited access.
Presuming that the kids will be expected to do various degrees of online research and the like (that being the main benefit that I can see of the computer access) what is the school going to do to allow more time before and after school in the library for the kids to do their research and homework there? The last two years it was our experience that the kids were aggressively "shooed" out of the school library before 4:00 p.m., when that corridor is then locked and we had all the issues with accessing the locker, getting instruments, etc.
Tech Support:
Another major concern. I lost count of how many times I tried to communicate with teachers last year about assignments, only to be told to "check the website" or "check my blog", only to find that the website was down and therefore none of the links to the blogs were available, either. If the current tech-support department struggled to maintain one master website, how on earth is it going to manage the various concerns and issues from approximately 600 kids with laptops?
Safe and appropriate use:
We have only one computer at home that my kids are allowed to access - on purpose. We have four children altogether, and like all families, our kids have different interests, different activities, etc. It's impossible to monitor what they do on the computer or watch on TV constantly. We have parent controls on the TV and computer and go back through and check 'history' on the computer to make sure they're not surfing where they don't belong.
It will be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE for us to manage this level of surveillance on two additional computers, especially when most of that use won't be done at home. What sort of restraints are in place to ensure the kids aren't accidentally landing where they ought not to be while 'surfing'?
General concerns:
Why was it decided to commit to a four-year contract for this program when it is so new and untried? Would it not have been far better to negotiate for a trial period, first and then decide if it worked as well as you hoped? Technology advances so quickly that these brand-spanking-new (and expensive-liability) computers will be 'old' in six months and all but obsolete in twelve to eighteen months.
The laptop Mac computer I'm going to have to insure tomorrow, and carry an additional $250 personal liability for, is not going to be worth half what the school paid for it by the end of the year! If these same computers are going to be used over and over for the next four years (highly unlikely given the extreme fragility of laptops in general), they will be next to worthless by the end of that period.
I understand there were restrictions as to how the school was permitted to use this money. However, as a parent, I would have much, MUCH preferred to have an assurance that my two children would have their OWN text books for ALL of their classes this year - rather than struggle without MATH and SCIENCE textbooks as we did all year last year. I will be seriously displeased if we're saddled with these laptops and still have to struggle with an inadequate supply of textbooks.
Good idea, Weak planning:
In general, I think I understand the underlying foundation of what you are attempting to accomplish here. Kids need to be highly computer literate in this day and age, and it has to be a prestigious thing - particularly for a very small public school district - to be able to brag about providing laptops to every 7-12 student.
However, this really isn't necessarily in the best interest of the students or their families.
Had SH implemented this program for upperclassmen, your Juniors and Seniors, you would have found me to be among your most ardent supporters. These students are actively preparing for college, they are old enough to understand the fragility of the equipment and the burden of responsibility, and many of them have their own vehicles or other means of transport so as not to have to rely on the chaos of the bus system. Of course, I would still personally argue in favor of the more commonly used, less expensive, more easily replaced PC over a Mac, but a computer is a computer and the basic skills of internet usage, research, word processing and the like are similar enough not to make that much difference. The older 'kids' would be much better prepared and more mature to handle this level of responsibility.
If it worked well with the upper grades, the next logical step might have been to gradually include the next lower grade each year until/unless you hit the 'wall' where the risks and problems began to outweigh the benefits and convenience.
As it is now, I think the over-all planning, implementation and detail consideration for this huge project were not as thorough as they ought to have been. Parents ought to have been notified - letters sent home, surveys asking for opinions, input, concerns, etc., before a decision was made.
Please understand that my kids are thrilled with the idea of having their "own" laptops - but then, they aren't the ones that will have to decide what area of the family budget needs to be stretched even thinner when it's time to pay the deductible!
We will be participating, because despite my grave misgivings and profound displeasure, I feel we have no real choice. Yes, I realize that technically we DO have a choice, but neither option is agreeable. I am extremely disappointed in how this was handled, but I hope that my fears will prove groundless, that my questions will be answered, and the obvious problems and obstacles will somehow be resolved or overcome.
If there is such a thing as an email address for the Board, I would appreciate it if you would forward my concerns to that address. Meanwhile, I will be attempting to find mailing addresses for the members of the board to send out snail-mail copies of this.
I will be 'seeing' at least some of you tomorrow during 7th grade orientation for (daughter) and then our acquisition of this new 'prize'.
Thank you for your time.
Me.
Edited names out.
Damn, am I pissed.