The nation's public school systems are working overtime to equip students with modern technology, installing high-tech computer labs and even issuing a laptop to every student. But two recent incidents in New England show that seasoned bureaucratic thinking can derail even the most well-intentioned acts.
Take the case of Paloma Stanley. The 18-year-old student at Boston Community Leadership Academy is set to graduate tonight, but the principal threatened to keep her from walking after Stanley lost her school-issued laptop.
"Now, unless she makes a down payment of $300 on the $700 computer, she cannot join her classmates when they graduate tonight at John Hancock Hall," the Boston Globe reported. "[Stanley] said she lives on her own and works 20 hours a week at a movie theater. Earning a diploma, she said, was a huge personal achievement and was her ticket to college. 'Technically I am responsible, but cut me some slack,' she said yesterday, as she turned to the media after unsuccessfully lobbying the principal. 'I've done everything I could.'"
Here was principal Nicole Bahnam's response to the Globe: "'Those are the tough lessons in life. ... Nothing comes for free. Hello. We all work very hard."
Tell Paloma Stanley something she doesn't know.
I can't say for sure whether Stanley really is an emancipated student working her way through high school; I couldn't get her on the phone. Whatever the case, she will graduate after all, Bahnam told me when I called the academy this morning.
According to Bahnam, a "good Samaritan" called at 7:20 a.m. this morning and donated a laptop to replace the one that Stanley lost. Another one called 20 minutes later to donate a replacement for a laptop that another student lost. Both students will be allowed to join their classmates tonight, Bahnam said. "This shows how good people are," she said.
True, I said, but I asked whether she realized that the reason the donors called was because they probably felt that Bahnam was acting like a heartless functionary? No, she replied: "I don't look at it as bad press. I look at it as a lesson in life."
Bahnam went on to say that she would talk about this affair in her graduation speech tonight. But is this really a lesson that Paloma Stanley failed to learn already? "I think she's resilient," Bahnam said. "But she needed another push."
Somebody needs a push, all right, but it's not Stanley. Working 20 hours a week on top of a full courseload -- not to mention the 7-mile commute from Dorchester to Brighton -- can teach even the most spoiled student a few lessons about responsibility. Add to that rent, utilities and food, and you have responsibilities that plenty of adults can't handle.
Besides, lost laptops happen. From Alexandria, Va., to Maine to Georgia, students lug around thousand-dollar-plus machines as a basic part of the curriculum, and some of those silicon tools will disappear in buses, closets, taxis and all the other places where all of us have lost items to the mysterious ether.
This is something that school systems, which are handing out more technology to their charges than ever before, should have realized by now. Michael Contompasis, chief operating officer for Boston Public Schools, told the Globe that the city's policy says "students must return school materials by the end of the year or pay for them. Each year a handful of students are threatened with not being able to attend graduation ceremonies because materials are missing. ... 'These kids usually settle these things before it gets this far,' he said."
