Munster Schools: Are you helping or hindering the Digital Drama Dilemma?

Spending a casual day at my mother in law's home today, I didn't expect to be inspired with a topic to discuss. While skimming through the Sunday paper, I was alerted to something that immediately "awoke the sleeping giant" in me.

I read the commentary of newspaper columnist Mark Kiesling titled, "Munster school actions awaken sleeping giant." He was commenting on the decision of the Munster school corporation to make a deal with Dell to purchase student laptops. Sounds good right? Well, this deal is now causing parents to have to shell out $250 on top of their book rental fees over the course of the next 4 years. That's $1,000 PER student for each laptop. While the students will get to keep the laptops at the end of the 4 year term, by the time the laptop is officially there's to keep -- the technology will have been obsolete for at least 3 years at that point. I used to work for Staples and Office Depot. Both places are large retailers that carry computers and accessories. Through both of the companies, I found high end laptops with excellent reviews for well under the $1,000 price tag that the school town of Munster has attached. The laptop I found at Office Depot cost $879. The laptop that I found at Staples was $699 after rebates.

I think the comment that upset me the most in Kiesling's article today was the assumption that the parents could afford to foot the bill. "Hey, it's not like most Munster parents can't afford the $250 a year. But they resent the lack of input, the lack of choice of laptop manufacturer and the general high-handedness of the board and administration." Really? Yeah the latter has alot to do with the outrage, but how many families struggle to get by? These families do exist, even in Munster I assure you. Over 15% of Munster students are on the free or reduced lunch programs. Now, according to the original article posted about the subject, those students receiving free or reduced lunch will not be required to foot that bill. That just raises the question... who is going to be held responsible for that $670,000? I KNOW there are families inside the Munster school district who earn just over the amount that qualifies them for the free/reduced programs. These are families that still have to pay the full amount to attend Munster Schools despite the fact they have to watch their checkbook to make sure their grocery bill doesn't bounce. Some of these families have more then one student in the household. Some families have already scrimped and saved to buy their kids computers to use at home to assist in their education. Now they are going to be forced to purchase another computer?!?

But now to the real heart of the issue that I see... is it really wise to add so much extra computer time to a generation that is already lacking the social skills necessarily to survive in the real world? Now, those cyberbullies that only had access to a computer in the evenings or on weekends, can torment their victims 24/7 --- and the school is giving them this power. I have yet to read what monitor's are going to be put in place to ensure that social networking isn't taking place during school hours. Munster Superintendent Richard Sopko commented in the original article: 'Sopko said the district is well aware that many parents have laptops at home, but he said the issue is one of licensing and viruses. "We have to give students a protective environment, and we lose control of that if we open it up to using their own laptops," he said.' I want to know how the school environment will be protected with the mass introduction of all of these "weapons" in the hands of cyberbullies.

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/mark-kiesling/article_08c84d3b-5f4d-5e2c-ad49-0a48c8b569f1.html Link the the Commentary that triggered this topic

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/mark-kiesling/article_08c84d3b-5f4d-5e2c-ad49-0a48c8b569f1.html?mode=comments Comments posted to the article in today's paper.

http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/munster/article_b92008ff-ea8f-523d-b2c7-23cad091f211.html Original article posted on July 4th regarding the laptops.