School charging for broken equipment

mvteng

Teddy_KGB wrote: »

Yes take responsibility for your actions and face the consequences, but you should only pay a fare amount for the damage done. wall?

I don't work in IT, but £115 doesnt seem an unreasonable cost to me for repair / replacement of a Netbook screen.

Teddy_KGB wrote: »

Or to use different example what if the boy had graffitied a wall, would you pay for the cost to clean it off or would you pay an invoice for the cost to rebuild the wall?

As per TooSad above, head of IT in a secondary school, £115 is probably a realistic cost to repair. No-ones asking him to buy a new netbook / rebuild a wall

j.e.j.

You would have to squeeze the screen pretty damn hard to break it. Could it be that there was a fault with it already? Perhaps if I was your sister I might argue along those lines

Mallotum_X

Seems perfectly fair. He broke it, so parents should pay up. If i was the parents he would be getting a b0llocking for doing so and lose any pocket money/priveleges for quite some time until its paid off.

A good lesson in cause and effect.

Otherwise the school has to pay, which in effect is the rest of the taxpayers. Why should we pick up the bill for some kid breaking a laptop screen. And can you really break a screen by giving it a little squeeze, more likely it was deliberate and quite strong efforts to break it.

Well done on the school for doing the right thing, lets see if the parents now do the right thing.

Marisco

A netbook is a "baby" laptop, yes? (I'm not very well up on "techie" terms ) I have a laptop, and don't touch the screen at all, apart from to clean it, so why was he squeezing the screen??? Even with a touch screen, you don't need to squeeze it? Or am I missing something here???

mrcow

Marisco wrote: »

A netbook is a "baby" laptop, yes? (I'm not very well up on "techie" terms ) I have a laptop, and don't touch the screen at all, apart from to clean it, so why was he squeezing the screen??? Even with a touch screen, you don't need to squeeze it? Or am I missing something here???

Perhaps we should translate "squeezing" as actually "stabbing it with something". I can't see how you'd break it otherwise.

vax2002

Who paid for it in the first place ?

Teddy_KGB

mvteng wrote: »

I don't work in IT, but £115 doesnt seem an unreasonable cost to me for repair / replacement of a Netbook screen.



As per TooSad above, head of IT in a secondary school, £115 is probably a realistic cost to repair. No-ones asking him to buy a new netbook / rebuild a wall

See link:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-netbook-deals

A new netbook is available for £175, plus schools probably get discounts for buying bulk, do schools have to pay VAT? We don't know how old the netbook was.

ALI1973

For what its worth, I think it is quite correct that the parent is charged for their child breaking something. Schools already have very stretched budgets and having to repair/replace this netbook would take a huge chunk out of that Dept budget. And in our County, invoices most certainly do get chased.

I doubt VERY much that this would be covered by insurance, as I am not aware that any insurance would pay up against a child deliberately squeezing a netbook screen until it broke, and certainly the school would not charge AND claim even if it could??

Surely, no parent would want its child to be deprived from using equipment that will aid their future learning, so to say the parent was not told about this, is an attempt to "cop out" of their responsibility. I would very much question in this day and age that a 14 year old needed any "training" on this type of equipment, no doubt he has already used like equipment for many years?? does he have a smartphone??? (many kids do these days).

Personally if this were my child, he would have to pay the invoice himself, either by using his pocket money or getting a Saturday job, it is far to easy these days to give excuses for irresponsible behaviour, as has been demonstrated in recent days with these mindless riots.

david39

Is this not a very minor example of what schools and parents need to have been doing all along to help avoid the disastrous events of the past few days?

It's showing young people that there is a consequence to careless or destructive actions.

I am not trying to link the OP's son to any of the people who looted or damaged property and please do not come down on me saying that I am escalating a minor incident into a national emergency.

The point I am making is that, whether the OP has to pay up or not, her son has learned a valuable lesson here - be respectful of other people's property or you will be involved in the consequences. In this case they may range between recompensing the school or just an awkward interview with teacher/headmaster/parent. Either way, I am sure he feels wretched about it now.

Most of us in childhood did something disrespectful or downright destructive to the detriment of others and now cringe when we think of it. It is part of growing up and just one of the ways in which most of us learn that usually chickens come home to roost.

Hopefully, the OP will come to an amicable arrangement with the school, the incident will fade into distant memory, but the lesson will remain subconciously with him and stand him in good stead in later life.

Marisco

No, schools don't pay VAT, or at least they can claim it back. I used to work in a place that supplied stationery etc to schools, and prices quoted were always ex VAT, as that was what they would ultimately pay.