Having previously taught high school computer applications, and
currently running a middle school media center which functions much like
a computer lab (13 workstations), unmanned labs are expensive disasters
in the making. Filtering is not the only problem. Warn your
administrators of spyware, malware, viruses, stolen & vandalized RAM,
hard drives, mice & mice balls, & other components, and that's not even
mentioning hacking your school or district system! An unmanned lab in
my school now has 5 working machines out of 30 (which is why the media
center must offer "lab" services). I spend approximately 2-5 hours a
week scanning and tweaking these computers just to keep them running. A
lab of 30 computers represents more than $30,000 in equipment. Best be
prepared with a crack technology repair team!
>>> Chris beck <cbeck@SPENCER.K12.IA.US> 03/09/2005 11:22:35 AM >>>
This sort of goes along with the filtering/blocking thread, but we are
wondering how other schools handle the monitoring of high school
computer labs. Our district needs to cut about $1 million from next
year's budget and has decided to cut the positions of all computer lab
monitors across the district, which are support staff people making
about $10,000-$12,000 a year. Our total enrollment is around 1900 with
about 600 at the high school.
We have 4 computer labs at the high school; one used only for tech ed
classes, one for business classes, one next to the library that stays
locked unless a teacher takes a whole class in, and one used heavily
by
the English and Social Studies dept. We also have 5 stand-alones in
the
library and a mobile unit of 30 labtops. The English/SS lab has always
been an open lab in the sense that students can use it anytime,
because
it's always been monitored. Her job is being eliminated and no one
knows
if the lab door will be open next year and students will be allowed to
use it unsupervised. If not, we don't know how the students will be
able
to use a lab during study halls, open periods, before and after
school,
as well as all the times students are sent from classes to do makeup
work, small group work, etc.
We've had 2 public hearings where people were given the opportunity to
speak for any of the proposed cuts. We spoke out for these positions,
describing the terrible stuff that went on in the lab next to the
library before we locked the door, but administration justifies those
particular cuts based on the fact that our district uses
filtering/blocking. (Which we know didn't stop students in the past.)
Admin also tells us that it is very rare to have computer lab monitors
nowadays.
Thanks for your input.
Chris Beck
Spencer High School
Spencer, IA
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