A 1:1 Harmful Plan
Background
Beginning in the 2024–2025 school year, KatyISD will assign all students their own personal Chromebook. This will come to the benefit of students who can't afford their own devices, and ideally, it will prevent or diminish the misuse of technology during class hours.
This enforcement will be accompanied with a ban on all other personal devices during the class hours, too.
Source: https://www.katyisd.org/Page/10542
Implications
Chromebooks are almost unanimously frowned upon by students. Those who have personal devices almost always use them over Chromebooks, despite Chromebooks being provided and readily available for rent by the school.
Harm on productivity
An alarming concern among students is the potential for CLASS 1:1's impact on productivity. A growing number of students at CRHS are using tablets/iPads as a digital medium for handwriting. This offers students a less stressful experience when filling out homework and notes. Many people, including an author of this document, find that this drastically increases productivity. The enforcal of school-provided Chromebooks would greatly harm the productivity of the many students that benefit from this technology, directly contrary to CLASS 1:1's stated purpose.
Intrusive to student privacy
The forced usage of district-issued Chromebooks will also ensure that the district can actively monitor the activities of any student.
As an example, school Chromebooks by default are installed with an extension called GoGuardian, which markets itself as protecting students from harmful content. However, what many students aren't told is that school administrators and teachers are given complete access to "a student's browsing history, IP address, online content, screenshots, and key percentage variance ((but not the actual inputs or sequence of inputs) to identify patterns like gaming)". With no notice of consent of the student, the school would be able to able to monitor what students are doing outside of school premises. As the writing of the document, it is unclear if students are allowed to leave their devices on-campus.
Privacy is a fundamental human right, and it is an entirely unethical practice to force students into using a platform that does not respect their privacy with no option for opting-out.
Various articles from credible publications explain the implications of forced use of school issued devices:
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/11/us-students-digital-surveillance-schools
- https://www.eff.org/wp/school-issued-devices-and-student-privacy
- https://www.wired.com/story/student-monitoring-software-privacy-in-schools
Invalid substitute
Some classes require the use of applications that are not available on Chromebooks. These include code editors such as Processing, VSCode, Eclipse for Computer Science, CAD software for Engineering, and Logger Pro for physics. Denying students access to these programs will prevent students from working on assignments during study hall and 3.5 periods.
Additionally, classes often require students to digitally submit their paperwork on Canvas. Students do this by taking photos of their work with their phones. This policy would quickly become a nuisance to students who would be otherwise prohibited from using personal devices during class hours.
Proposal
Having Chromebooks available to all students is great opportunity for classrooms to begin adopting modern technology. It's also great that lower income families should not feel pressured to purchase electronic devices for their student to succeed academically. However forcing students to use of these devices without their consent, and even when some students may already have a preferred device, is far from necessary.
The optimal solution is to allow students to opt-out of the 1:1 system and use their own device. Chromebooks can still be used for in-class research and test-taking; the increased availability will allow for such.
If administration deems smaller electronic devices, such as phones, as a distraction, that's fine. We're advocating for allowing the use of work-focused devices such as tablets and laptops on school premises.
We hope that this policy is amended before it is put into effect next year.
—Several anonymous CRHS Students | [email protected]
Show your support for this change by signing the petition.
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-personal-devices-policy