I am a high school science teacher in the Lake Washington School District. I usually stay away from education discussions here, because there are enough uninformed know-it-alls to make the discussions annoying (I mean a minority here, no disparagement of /. intended). People think that they know everything about education because they went to school at some time. Not necessarily true.

I don't have much time (grading calls) but I wanted to address a couple things I've seen in my perusal of the comments. 1. Someone said they issued laptops with no restrictions. Not true. It just isn't. There was a problem, and it's bad, but we actually aren't a bunch of idiots randomly passing out laptops. We USE them extensively for assignments, assessments, surveys/polls, research, and communication. There is security in place, although I don't know all aspects of it since my IT days are behind me. I do know that the web filters work wherever the laptops are used, and I know already of a few students who got busted for using proxies. It's going to happen, because a lot of our students are smart. I don't think it was a student who introduced the virus, but I can't state my reasons, so I don't expect anyone to believe me.

2. Incompetent IT. Not true, either. It was an error. A costly one, but I don't think this is an indication of utter incompetence. Hiring IT people isn't easy, because we can't pay what the private sector does.

Crap. I gotta run. Suffice to say, this has been a pain in the butt, and has made everything more difficult, but I know a lot of these IT people who are being trashed and they work their asses off and do a great job when we need them. This kind of problem is unprecedented here.

SIgh. I posted this already but wasn't logged in. Try again:

I have MS. That's how I became so physically inept. I have nerve pain and occasional weakness and numbness in my hands, and I get shock sensations at random as well. That's one reason ounces matter to some (about 2.5 million worldwide) of us. It sure was shocking to me, getting this disease. In addition, some of us are old. Some have arthritis. Shocking! Carpal tunnel is common. One way to tell you have it is tapping the wrist can cause shock-like sensations in the fingers. That makes it harder to hold things as well. Even with normal, non-shockingly incapacitated hands one can really feel the difference when holding a tablet for a long time.

Gnashing teeth? A little hyperbolic, perhaps? Maybe there are good reasons to pay attention to weight?