ROCKPORT, Maine — The high school here vowed to cut its laptop repair costs after an “astronomically high” $56,000 bill last school year. And it has, but the costs are still quadruple what its local counterparts are spending.
Camden Hills Regional High School released information that it has spent $12,000 this school year on repairs in the state’s one-to-one laptop rental program, which gives each high school student a MacBook. That’s about $3,000 a month so far. Although that’s down from a rough average of $6,000 a month last year, it’s still a huge budget line compared to similar-size Rockland High School’s laptop bill, which topped off at about $5,000 for the whole school year last year.
The superintendent says the new numbers are good news. The entire laptop program was in jeopardy when the school district had to write the check for $56,000, but by collecting $50 per student for the laptop program this year, Camden Hills Regional High has a $25,000 cushion.
“$12,000 is very reasonable,” said Superintendent William Shuttleworth on Friday. “We’re pretty pleased with the low amount of repairs. For the most part, the repairs are wear and tear. The machines are 3 or 4 years old; they’re starting to wear out. I don’t think these machines are meant for the heavy use they get.”
Shuttleworth attributes last year’s high laptop repair bill to carelessness. Since then, the school has made students carry their computers in protective cases and constantly reminds them how to care for their computers.
According to the Jan. 4 meeting minutes for the school district’s finance committee, 37 computers were damaged in December. Of those repairs, 25 were damaged hinges and cases, seven were broken screens, and five were malfunctioning hard drives. That tallied up a $4,600 bill in addition to previous bills since September.
Collecting $50 per student seems to have made a “cushion” but the costs of repairs seems still to be excessive…..Make the students / parents responsible for repairs and I would guess they might be taken better care of with less repair necessary…..this is what you get when you “hand out” free stuff with little to no accountability…..Crazy…..
Or instead of asking parents to pay for repairs they could have in house computer staff or vocational students do the repairs. All of the repairs mentioned are easy enough and require no special tools. I personally have replaced the screen, hard drive and case on different laptops I have owned over the years. All were simple tasks that took no more than an hour and a screwdriver. They are probably paying someone $150 per hour to fix these when it could be done for next to nothing by using school staff or students.
Just another example of the incredible waste by this state and government in general. If they addressed the root of the problem, which is the repair staff they are using, they would have better luck than trying to get students to take better care of the computers.
I know from personal experience no matter how well you take care of a laptop after a few years things start to wear out and malfunction.
Every action should have a consequence-either a penalty or a reward. Kids are pretty smart, damage it -you pay, protect it- get something extra. Kids are in school to get ready for the real world, and that’s how it works. By paying the $50.00 up front you’re almost telling them that some damage is expected.
Damage is excessive comparitive to say a business environment with ADULT users and yes appears to be A-typical however of K-12. The warnings were ignored in Maine though we were warned about the ongoing excessive costs of repair /maintenance.
Again what are the total laptop/desktop/server numbers here? But “worn-out” and break downs is not damage and are two very different things. But service or maintenance agreements are NOT always cost effective. I.E. , 1000 laptops @ $ 100 . a yr = $ 100, 000 and so your maintenance most likely here is not in that range with no service/ maintenance agreement or pay as you go might be more effective. BUT damage is damage not covered. Insurance plans like cell phone replacement generally are cost prohibitive too. So as dressed, education, training and handling of electronics should be persistant and cindistant and repetitive.
We do not have the money to support any computer programs in this state. Let the kids go to the computer room and let the parents buy them a lap top if they so wish. This is folly.