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A school board in South Carolina has launched a pilot program to get rid of snow days and instead have students work from home when the weather turns treacherous. Beyond depriving schoolkids of the joys of weather-enforced truancy, the plan will exacerbate the region's digital divide for student who don't have internet access at home.
Anderson County School District Five will be the first region to participate in the pilot program this upcoming school year. In the past, Anderson County had makeup days tacked on to the end of the school year in lieu of days missed due to bad weather, but most kids ended up just skipping them, according to a local news report.
Students from grades 3 through 12 in the school board are already given Chromebooks to use at home, so in the event of a snow day or other inclement weather that causes a shutdown, kids will be expected to log on from home, communicate with teachers, and complete assignments.
Source: MotherBoard
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 05 2018, @12:39AM
Chromebooks and other proprietary devices are hardly necessary for education. If computers are needed at all, they should all run only Free Software. But, outside of teaching Computer Science, these devices will just serve a distraction and will not somehow improve the quality of the education being offered.
This is just a handout to large corporations, much like with the textbook situation.