As a former public school teacher, I vividly remember the anticipation that students, my colleagues and I felt when the end of the school year approached. It could never come fast enough.
But as we were dreaming about summer activities and vacations, school staff also had to take care of the somewhat mundane end-of-year administrative tasks — like collecting textbooks, finalizing students’ grades, and cleaning our classrooms. We suffered through it because we knew there was light at the end of the tunnel.
While the situation hasn’t changed much for teachers in the years since I left teaching, IT and asset administrator staff may feel differently today about the end of the school year.
For them, the end of the school year brings a chaotic time when all the school district’s computers, especially those the students use for learning, have to be accounted for and inspected for usability next year. Accounting for all these devices can be challenging enough in the best of circumstances, but especially if students are allowed to take mobile devices like laptops or tablets home during the school year to enhance their studying. The difficulty in getting all of those devices back increases exponentially.
The problem here is that primary and secondary school students generally don’t have the same developed sense of responsibility as adults; even though they’re told before the school year ends that they need to return their device, many don’t do it. This is frequently true even when they understand there will be repercussions, such as fines, withholding of grades, or even an inability to register for school next year.
Read: Security Basics for One-to-One Computing In Education
So what options does a school district have when students don’t return the district’s expensive computing devices at the end of the year?
Remember, very few law enforcement agencies will get involved. They’ll either see the issue as a civil problem and not a criminal violation, or feel (rightfully so) that their job is to protect society and not to expend strained resources on recovering overdue property.
The key to getting laptops and tablets back lies in adopting a multi-pronged approach aimed at both students and their parents. Parents are an essential part of the equation because often they’re led to believe their child has turned the school device in then discover the device in the child’s bedroom. Or perhaps the parent sincerely intends for their child’s device to be returned, but long hours at work or a lack of transportation make coordination with the nearest campus difficult.
To recover as many devices as possible, here are a few suggestions:
Approaching the complications surrounding unreturned devices in a coordinated and systematic manner will yield the most significant results. Primary and secondary school students can’t be expected to treat this situation like the vast majority of adults, but that shouldn’t mean those devices not turned in should merely be written-off. Writing off a device doesn’t provide enough incentive for those same students to neglect turning in the devices when next year rolls around.
Here’s the formula: by using multiple communication attempts over various communication channels directed at both the parents and students — combined with the ability to remotely freeze a device to prevent further use — will ensure that fewer devices will ultimately need to be replaced.
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