this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by throws_lemy@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The middle schooler had been begging to opt out, citing headaches from the Chromebook screen and a dislike of the AI chatbot recently integrated into it.

Parents across the country are taking steps to stop their children from using school-issued Chromebooks and iPads, citing concerns about distractions and access to inappropriate content that they fear hampers their kids’ education.

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[–] grue@lemmy.world 109 points 1 month ago (12 children)

I've opted out of the school Chromebooks for my kids because they have computers running real GNU at home. We should all be outraged that schools are pushing a locked-down surveillance/content consumption-only platform, as opposed to something like a Raspberry Pi that actually empowers kids to have real computer literacy.

[–] modus@lemmy.world 28 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I'm curious to know if anyone here has ever approached the school IT department to ask what steps they take to mitigate or eliminate surveillance and tracking in these devices. I know it's inherent in Google products to begin with, but do they even try? Or pretend to try? Or admit they don't care?

[–] Newsteinleo 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The IT Department knows about all the problems it's the administration that does not care and won't let the IT people do anything. Also, you don't want to know how bad the procurement process is with most school systems.

[–] modus@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Good point. I've never worked in education. I neglected the fact that they're just fulfilling orders. I believe you it's probably a shitshow with privacy and preemptive security procedures almost non-existent.

[–] Bazoogle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I don't work for a school, but I apply default policies to stop tracking/telemetry on all the company computers. I wasn't asked to, nor do my coworkers seem to care nearly as much. So the answer is probably that it will entirely depend on the IT admin they hired and how much they care

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