Possible to opt out of chromebooks?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

The only way we get hard copies is to buy them ourselves.

[Anonymous]

How do you think your son will react when all his peers are on screens playing fun learning games? Will he be able to self regulate enough to sit there quietly at his desk and read a book? I know there are kids with major issues around screens and I'm sorry you are going through this. You may need an IEP for this. You might be able to get one around a behavioral or emotional disability. I'm not sure if a 504 would work. Good luck to you and to your child's school. This is going to be difficult to implement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Right so those kids can have accommodations but the point was just you don't need to print 900 copies of something in order to do a lesson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you think your son will react when all his peers are on screens playing fun learning games? Will he be able to self regulate enough to sit there quietly at his desk and read a book? I know there are kids with major issues around screens and I'm sorry you are going through this. You may need an IEP for this. You might be able to get one around a behavioral or emotional disability. I'm not sure if a 504 would work. Good luck to you and to your child's school. This is going to be difficult to implement.

That should be the least of our concerns if all the kids are in class playing games.

[Anonymous]

My DD tells me the kids play other games when they are supposed to be doing Prodigy (math game). She and her friend did a typing game, other kids can access Spacehuggers, and other things. They "read" books on Epic, watch Pebble Go and PBS kids.
I don't think there is much you can do about it. Each kid gets a Chromebook that stays at school. Doesn't matter what you sign. The teacher needs to have the kids doing something otherwise it will be hard to pull kids for mandatory testing.

[Anonymous]

MCPS has Goguardian software. As an elementary teacher, I am able to monitor the tabs my students have open from my device. I have the ability to close or block tabs they try to open. I can lock their devices as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our son has behavior issues associated with screen time. It’s like jekyl and Hyde with him- becomes a terror whenever he is near a screen and is told to get off it. We are working in treatment options etc.

But wanted to know if anyone has been able to opt out of chromebooks in MCPS?

Could this be something included in a 504 plan?

I remember a kid when I was young whose parents wanted him to opt out of textbooks. They believed the devil was behind knowledge. I guess this is today's equivalent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD tells me the kids play other games when they are supposed to be doing Prodigy (math game). She and her friend did a typing game, other kids can access Spacehuggers, and other things. They "read" books on Epic, watch Pebble Go and PBS kids.
I don't think there is much you can do about it. Each kid gets a Chromebook that stays at school. Doesn't matter what you sign. The teacher needs to have the kids doing something otherwise it will be hard to pull kids for mandatory testing.

Some of this is teacher specific. My kids have had teachers who used the Chromebooks a lot, and those who really seemed to shun them and didn't even assign readings on them. I think the best OP might be able to do is to ask that their child be assigned to one of the teachers who doesn't use the computers as much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Mcps will not care and still give your child a chrome book. There is no reason k-4th need to use them daily. We opted out of websites and teachers ignored it and registered our child away using their name and other personal information which we then found on the dark web.

Sure, there is. It's the modern equivalent of paper and pencil. Would you prefer children use papyrus and quills?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Mcps will not care and still give your child a chrome book. There is no reason k-4th need to use them daily. We opted out of websites and teachers ignored it and registered our child away using their name and other personal information which we then found on the dark web.

Sure, there is. It's the modern equivalent of paper and pencil. Would you prefer children use papyrus and quills?

Paper and pencil use is not correlated with behavioral issues and mental health concerns, nor is it backed by an IT industry with a huge profit motive. It is naive to equate the two. Feel free to fall in line with chromebooks for your own kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD tells me the kids play other games when they are supposed to be doing Prodigy (math game). She and her friend did a typing game, other kids can access Spacehuggers, and other things. They "read" books on Epic, watch Pebble Go and PBS kids.
I don't think there is much you can do about it. Each kid gets a Chromebook that stays at school. Doesn't matter what you sign. The teacher needs to have the kids doing something otherwise it will be hard to pull kids for mandatory testing.

Some of this is teacher specific. My kids have had teachers who used the Chromebooks a lot, and those who really seemed to shun them and didn't even assign readings on them. I think the best OP might be able to do is to ask that their child be assigned to one of the teachers who doesn't use the computers as much.

This is good practical advice to follow while hopefully also pursuing a longer term solution through administrative channels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our son has behavior issues associated with screen time. It’s like jekyl and Hyde with him- becomes a terror whenever he is near a screen and is told to get off it. We are working in treatment options etc.

But wanted to know if anyone has been able to opt out of chromebooks in MCPS?

Could this be something included in a 504 plan?

Seriously, you will not be able to avoid it in MCPS. It is a crutch that was widely used during the pandemic and teachers have not let it go, sadly. Try private school. We go to one where notes are handwritten, tests are handwritten and all lessons are 'live' meaning kids are not told to just watch a video on a subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you think your son will react when all his peers are on screens playing fun learning games? Will he be able to self regulate enough to sit there quietly at his desk and read a book? I know there are kids with major issues around screens and I'm sorry you are going through this. You may need an IEP for this. You might be able to get one around a behavioral or emotional disability. I'm not sure if a 504 would work. Good luck to you and to your child's school. This is going to be difficult to implement.

That should be the least of our concerns if all the kids are in class playing games.

If that's true, it's not a Chromebook issue but a teacher issue since they have the tools to address it if they care to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our son has behavior issues associated with screen time. It’s like jekyl and Hyde with him- becomes a terror whenever he is near a screen and is told to get off it. We are working in treatment options etc.

But wanted to know if anyone has been able to opt out of chromebooks in MCPS?

Could this be something included in a 504 plan?

Seriously, you will not be able to avoid it in MCPS. It is a crutch that was widely used during the pandemic and teachers have not let it go, sadly. Try private school. We go to one where notes are handwritten, tests are handwritten and all lessons are 'live' meaning kids are not told to just watch a video on a subject.

In the same way that books were a crutch or paper and pencil. These are all crutches that teachers won't let go for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Sure you can opt out…of public school! As said by another poster on another thread about parental rights.