School charging for broken equipment

cheepskate_2

What would the parents have done if the boy had damaged dads/mums computer like this.

Would they have said it was just an accident , or would they have took the most likely senario and said boy was being an idiot , knows not to do it and just wasnt bothered as it wasnt him paying for the stuff they buy.

At good lessons are learnt when you are young and its only mum and dads boot you get up your backside, rather than a criminal record ,

*doodle*_2

Yes, he should pay for it. He needs to take greater care with other people property and learn what the word 'responsibility' really means. Man alive, no wonder this country is going to the dogs. I am sick of reading about people shirking responsiblity, justifying shoddy behaviour and placing blame elsewhere.

What on earth is the school meant to do? Say 'oh its ok. Here, would you like something else to break and spoil a learning opportunity for someone else?' Get a grip.

elvis86

The posters of who are saying that they would resent coughing up and try every trick going to get out of doing so are just the kind of people who are likely to raise kids who go out rioting and looting shops, IMO. "F**k the school", "Why should I pay?" etc...:cool:

We don't know the full facts in this case, but as others have said, you'd have to "squeeze" a laptop screen pretty hard to break it (and why the hell would you be "squeezing" it at all?!), and as far as I'm concerned it's perfectly reasonable to expect the kid's parents to pay for the damage. Your kid. Your responsibility.

I concur however, that in this instance perhaps the school haven't handled it particularly well. A letter accompanying (or preferably preceeding) the invoice, explaining what had happened would have been helpful. However, regardless of how reasonable the school might be, unfortunately there will always will be parents with attitudes that stink. Parents who will kick up a fuss and teach their children that you never take responsibility, you owe society nothing and you take whatever you can get.

dizziblonde

There has to be more to it than squeezing a laptop screen... were they doing the "push it to make the display distort" game?

As for this "kids should be trained to use them"... "shouldn't use them"... "were they given a chance to opt out of using the netbooks"... I'd like to see you find me a child who, when the teacher says "ok we're using the netbooks this lesson" doesn't go YEEEUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSS and requests to work with paper and pen instead. Most schools have sets of laptops or netbooks these days - to top up the number of computers available and give teachers the option to do a PC based lesson rather than have to fight to try to find a spare slot in the ICT suite for once. More and more stuff is going online - it's a fact of life and it means that schools are "training" kids to use this technology right the way through from Nursery upwards.

And yes, schools buy standard sets of thing like netbooks - because it means you're not scraping around trying to find the right adaptor, it means they all fit in the safe to store and charge them, it means that things like replacements can be ordered easily rather than having to faff about finding out exactly what component it is for that individual brand of machine and it means everything runs the same version of Windows and other software. I come from a primary background where often there IS a mishmash of technology dotted around classrooms (usually when the ICT suite computers are replaced, or donations come in from wherever they go as extra machines for in classrooms and end up as a right royal hodge podge) and it's a flipping nightmare trying to get software working, things replaced, teach kids to do things and then find there's different versions of Windows around the school etc.

But this is what we're up against in education - a constant barrage of blamestorming and dodging everything.

j.e.j.

Whoah! how did we get from someone's teenaged nephew having a mis-hap at school to: this is how someone becomes a looter and a rioter? :rotfl::rotfl:

Let's not get self-righteous here.

In any case the OP hasn't yet come back to respond or add any more info.

Lotus-eater

He was probably squeezing it to find out what would happen, I could imagine myself doing the same at that age, you know they go funny colours when you touch them, he was surprised when it broke so easily and confessed straight away, I don't think there was any malicious damage there.

No one really knows what happened and I suspect that what it really comes down to is what the kid is really like.

cheepskate_2

He may have only been pressing it to see the distort, but come on hes 14, not 4 and knows better.

Lotus-eater

j.e.j. wrote: »

Whoah! how did we get from someone's teenaged nephew having a mis-hap at school to: this is how someone becomes a looter and a rioter? :rotfl::rotfl:

Let's not get self-righteous here.

In any case the OP hasn't yet come back to respond or add any more info.

Quite, I was thinking the same thing.

I know when I was at school, I was I felt treated unfairly at some points, I wasn't a bad kid and if I had had an accident with a netbook screen, ok I made a mistake and confessed (and was probably mortified), but then to be given a bill for £115, when all around me troublemakers at school were getting away with all sorts of stuff, which is exactly the way it happens, I would have been a bit annoyed.
Yes I broke it, yes someone has to pay for it, but do I not feel I've been picked on a bit for telling someone, while all the troublemakers who break stuff on purpose, never get caught and continue to do it.

welshsue

My son's high school has it in the school rules that if the children break/lose an item belonging to the school then they can charge the parents for it. I agree with this as the school budgets are limited and the pupils should look after things.

milliebear00001

Lotus-eater wrote: »

Quite, I was thinking the same thing.

I know when I was at school, I was I felt treated unfairly at some points, I wasn't a bad kid and if I had had an accident with a netbook screen, ok I made a mistake and confessed (and was probably mortified), but then to be given a bill for £115, when all around me troublemakers at school were getting away with all sorts of stuff, which is exactly the way it happens, I would have been a bit annoyed.
Yes I broke it, yes someone has to pay for it, but do I not feel I've been picked on a bit for telling someone, while all the troublemakers who break stuff on purpose, never get caught and continue to do it.

So are you saying that because others get away with stuff, he should too? We don't know what motivated the boy to tell the truth. Maybe he's honest, maybe he knew it would become obvious when they started the lesson. Regardless, he has been careless and needs to make amends for that. If he's genuinely an honest lad, he won't have a problem with that.