Possible to opt out of chromebooks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can refuse to sign the chromebook contract

This is what I plan to do

It's kind of like refusing to use textbooks back in my day. This will just get you an F.

It’s not back in the day.

[Anonymous]

NP here. Are there other nearby public school districts that use less of the Chromebooks, like HOCO or Frederick for example? I'm just curious is this is an MCPS issue or if it is widespread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

Have your kid show up without one or a dead battery and see what happens.

They have extra chargers and you can also get one from the media center

[Anonymous]

We have not been successful. Kids circulate links to unblocked games, as well as ways to get around the blocker to watch YouTube. My child was getting in trouble for wasting time in class on games and videos, and I told the school to take away the Chromebook so that there is no temptation literally sitting at the desk. They refused. I asked what sort of support they could provide to help children break the habit/addiction to screen time. They had none. MCPS does not care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have not been successful. Kids circulate links to unblocked games, as well as ways to get around the blocker to watch YouTube. My child was getting in trouble for wasting time in class on games and videos, and I told the school to take away the Chromebook so that there is no temptation literally sitting at the desk. They refused. I asked what sort of support they could provide to help children break the habit/addiction to screen time. They had none. MCPS does not care.

It's not just MCPS, this problem is everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have not been successful. Kids circulate links to unblocked games, as well as ways to get around the blocker to watch YouTube. My child was getting in trouble for wasting time in class on games and videos, and I told the school to take away the Chromebook so that there is no temptation literally sitting at the desk. They refused. I asked what sort of support they could provide to help children break the habit/addiction to screen time. They had none. MCPS does not care.

This is so stupid. It’s one thing if the class is all doing an activity on the Chromebook together, but if they’re not, why can’t the Chromebooks be put somewhere other than the students’ desks?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

Have your kid show up without one or a dead battery and see what happens.

Haha you think that's a barrier? They will have a kid borrow a charger or use one in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

My school has two copy machines. At least one is broken 80% of the time and 50% of the time both are broken. We teach 900 kids. Printing 6-7 classes worth of assignments for each child is not an option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have not been successful. Kids circulate links to unblocked games, as well as ways to get around the blocker to watch YouTube. My child was getting in trouble for wasting time in class on games and videos, and I told the school to take away the Chromebook so that there is no temptation literally sitting at the desk. They refused. I asked what sort of support they could provide to help children break the habit/addiction to screen time. They had none. MCPS does not care.

It's not just MCPS, this problem is everywhere.

+1

Blame the people developing these highly addictive games that your child can access for free without registration.

[Anonymous]

Teachers that care about this issue use Goguardian to monitor students. I silently shut down any gaming, manga, video tabs, etc....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

My school has two copy machines. At least one is broken 80% of the time and 50% of the time both are broken. We teach 900 kids. Printing 6-7 classes worth of assignments for each child is not an option.

At some schools, scaling back on copy machines is an intentional cost saving decision, since they are assuming kids are using devices, not paper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

My school has two copy machines. At least one is broken 80% of the time and 50% of the time both are broken. We teach 900 kids. Printing 6-7 classes worth of assignments for each child is not an option.

At some schools, scaling back on copy machines is an intentional cost saving decision, since they are assuming kids are using devices, not paper.

Maybe ES have reduced the number of copy machines, but the majority of MCPS middle schools have long had just two full-size copy machines. This has been the case since I began teaching in 2001. Even high schools often only have two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

My school has two copy machines. At least one is broken 80% of the time and 50% of the time both are broken. We teach 900 kids. Printing 6-7 classes worth of assignments for each child is not an option.

At some schools, scaling back on copy machines is an intentional cost saving decision, since they are assuming kids are using devices, not paper.

Our elementary school pushes the kids to read books on Epic(?). I pushed back on this with my kid’s teacher and she agreed to let my kid take an actual book in to read instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

My school has two copy machines. At least one is broken 80% of the time and 50% of the time both are broken. We teach 900 kids. Printing 6-7 classes worth of assignments for each child is not an option.

When I was in school they’d post one copy of an assignment on the overhead and we’d all write our answers on a piece of loose leaf. Or in HS the teachers even just read the questions to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools can do almost all assignments on paper. Some kids forget chromebooks or haven't charged them. Teachers are used to working around them.

Untrue at least at DD's school. The teachers refuse to print assignments or modify them for paper. It's a mess and I'm sorry you are going through this OP. MCPS has been a disaster for DD since they started giving out Chromebooks.

My school has two copy machines. At least one is broken 80% of the time and 50% of the time both are broken. We teach 900 kids. Printing 6-7 classes worth of assignments for each child is not an option.

When I was in school they’d post one copy of an assignment on the overhead and we’d all write our answers on a piece of loose leaf. Or in HS the teachers even just read the questions to us.

Same when I went to school, but classes were not mainstreamed then. So if there was a student with dyslexia, dysgraphia, or ADHD in the class, they were pretty screwed by those approaches. I have really bright, hardworking students whose handwriting is so illegible that they would not be able to read back what they wrote, let alone expect a teacher to decipher it for grading. And I have students with high IQs who have slow processing speed. Forcing them to answer a number of verbal questions in the same amount of time as non-disabled peers would be unfair.