posted in Technology

Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers

At least one Kansas district is projecting $150,000 to $180,000 just to equip secondary students with individual phone lockers, according to the Wichita Eagle. The state provided zero dedicated funding. Every dollar comes from local budgets.

Districts choosing fabric locking pouches — think Yondr, the magnetic-lock system concert venues use to keep audiences present — face an estimated $30 per unit. Statewide, the Kansas Division of the Budget put that figure at roughly $13.4 million if every student received one, according to the Lawrence KS Times. Lockers require a steeper upfront investment. Neither option came with a state check attached.

Legislators passed the policy. The price tag was someone else’s problem.

www.gadgetreview.com/kansas-schools-now-collect-phones-at-the-door-spends-180k-on-smartphone-lockers

Replying to @⁨FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world⁩

I mean I’ve seen a lot more money wasted on much dumber shit.

Kids aren’t going to learn if they’ve got handheld social media internet gaming consoles with them in school. I wouldn’t have. They’re not going to willingly put them away for hours every day. I wouldn’t have. So…lock the fuckers up. These kids need to be educated so I’m not being taken care of by drooling Idiocracy background actors when I’m in end-of-life care. There’s way too much stupid going around already.

To be clear, 180k is too much. I’m just saying I agree with locking the goddamn things up.

Replying to an earlier post

Getting expelled from a school most definitely should effect your future. Alternative schools have never been known to be fun. They also don’t usually have buses that come near you, so parents are going to hate having to drive you there, and if they aren’t going you wind up in a situation where the kid gets taken by child protective services, and that’s not a system that has great futures for kids either.

Replying to an earlier post

Caring about future wasn’t that popular among kids anyway, but when everyone kinda accepts that the future should be sacrificed on an altar of a line going up, it’s even harder to care. We’re going to burn last available resources and warm planet until we can’t grow crops anymore, so we can generate bad videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti. Who the fuck cares about long division or mitochondria when the most popular occupation in 2050 is projected to be “water refugee”.
Sure, it’s a doom scenario, it’s not guaranteed, we can somehow persevere, humanity always does. And even in the doom scenario It’s not impossible that we’ll conserve the civilization in some form.
What we have lost forever is the trust of our kids, that ship has sailed. When Greta Thunberg asked us not to destroy the planet, the collective response was mockery, anger, and pedo threats. There is a generational disdain bigger than it was for boomers.