Student Laptop Agreement: Fill & Download for Free

Why certain things are offensive and they shouldn’t do them.It’s difficult, because a lot of those offensive things they do are just copies of the offensive things their parents do. I’m basically telling them that their parents shouldn’t be doing those things, either, which never goes over well.For example, every year I teach a lesson on subject/verb agreement. Actually, I teach several lessons on this, because it’s important. But one of those lessons is on conjugating the verb “be” to fit the subject:I am. (First person.)You are. (Second person.)She is. (Third person.)Every year, at least one student decides to make a racially-insensitive joke during this lesson. Something like:“I be, you be, she be, ain’t that right [stereotypical black name, like Tyronne],” they say out loud to the class, trying to get a laugh.When something like this happens… when a student is trying to be the class clown and get attention from their classmates, but they’re being super offensive, and they don’t even realize it… the best thing to do is stop it quickly and quietly, and explain why it was offensive later, in private. Because explaining it in front of the class is counter-productive, because the student who does it probably doesn’t care that it’s offensive, and will just enjoy the added attention.The students who make these jokes are usually racial minorities themselves, which makes it even more difficult to explain to them that they shouldn’t make those types of jokes. It ends up being me, a white guy, telling a non-white student that they shouldn’t model that particular behavior of their non-white parents, because it could be offensive to other non-white students.Once, during a parent/teacher conference in my first year of teaching, I pulled up some racially-offensive memes I found on a student’s laptop to show the parent. Rather than being shocked, which was the reaction I expected, the parent laughed at them and said that he was the one who sent them to his child. That’s when it occurred to me: no wonder the student was so confused when he got in trouble for having those memes on his laptop. He didn’t realize how offensive they were, because his role model didn’t find them offensive. The parent never did agree with me on that. He just said that he’d tell his son to delete them from the laptop at school. Not that it was wrong or offensive or he was sorry, but more of a “there’s this stupid rule that exists for some reason and you have to follow it, son…”(Edit: as you can see by some of the comments, this is a difficult concept to explain to some adults as well.)

If it’s a school-issued Chromebook, it’s not spying… it’s monitoring. Chances are, you or your parents signed a school technology use agreement before you were given the Chromebook, and that agreement included a disclaimer that the school would have monitoring software on the school-issued Chromebook, and that nothing you did on that Chromebook was private.Schools have to monitor student Chromebooks, for student safety and liability reasons. If the school gives a student a laptop, and that student uses that laptop to do something dangerous or illegal, that student’s parents could sue the school for negligence. How can you give a child the means to commit a crime or make a stupid decision, and not monitor them to make sure they didn’t do it? It’s no different than making sure student athletes wear protective gear while playing. If a school lets a kid play football but doesn’t provide a helmet, that school could be sued for endangering the kid, even though it was the kid’s choice to play in the first place.Depending on the monitoring software, it may work no matter whose wifi you’re on: the school’s, or your own at home. If, when you log on to the Chromebook, it says something like “this Chromebook is managed by [name of your school],” there’s a good chance your school can monitor what you’re doing on it, even when you’re at home.Your best bet, if you’re concerned about your privacy, is to only use your school-issued Chromebook for school-related things, and use a personal laptop for personal things.Some monitoring software is done via Google Chrome sign-in. That is, if you sign into your school-issued account on another computer, that computer can be monitored for as long as you’re still signed into that account. I had problems with this at a former school where I worked. Students would log into their school email on their home computer, then not log off, and I’d get alerts that they were off task on their Chromebooks during the day. But, when I checked, it would say that they were doing one thing, but I could look across the room and see that they weren’t doing that… that they weren’t even on a computer. It was someone at their house who was on a computer that the student didn’t log off from. This led to at least one very awkward email to a parent, politely reminding them to make sure that their child logs off of their student account on their home computer. Or, better yet, never uses their student account on anything but the school’s computer.Another warning: Just because a school-managed Chromebook allows you to erase your browsing history or open an incognito tab, that doesn’t mean it’s not logging what you do still. The school’s tech person will still be able to see everything you were trying to hide. It’s hidden from your particular machine, not from the logs the tech person gets of Chromebook activity.

I was fired by my boss who was practically in love with me. This observation was made by my coworkers and my attorney.He had another manager present in the room during the termination. I could tell the other manager seemed uncomfortable and confused with the reasons behind the termination.I was number 1 in the company for sales. I made President's Club just 2 months before the termination. I appeared to be my manager’s favorite. He always spoke proudly about me to coworkers.And there I was in his office getting fired for insubordination and, specifically, violation of a non-compete agreement.How does this happen?Great question. I hadn't done either of the things I was accused of doing.It all began years prior to my termination. My sales territory was at least an hour away from the office. During training and even after, my manager drove with me into my territory to introduce me to current customers. On these long drives, we would naturally have conversations. At first, the conversations were mutually enjoyable and interesting.Then one day my manager became a little too personal about his home life and feelings toward his wife and marriage. I kept it professional and he kept pursuing personal topics. He began texting me outside of work. One time he even texted me in the middle of the night. One time he told me about his sexual fantasy via text which included me and him playing teacher and student in a schoolhouse.This left me in an awkward position. I didn't tell him that I felt uncomfortable because he was my manager and I didnt want to offend him or embarrass myself in case I had wrongly interpreted the communication. I also didn't entertain his inappropriate behavior or positively respond to his communication.Instead I focused on my work and began traveling with other coworkers, as I had deals that required the presence of other technology consultants.As I started selling more, sales managers started stealing sales from me or at least disputing the validity of the new business I had found.I found the company rather unethical and abusive, so I quietly began looking for another job.I had an interview with a local competitor who offered me double my current base pay and a better commission structure. I told the competitor that I would need time to consider the offer.The manager from the competitor who interviewed me had also interviewed my sales manager years before and had not offered him the position.Somehow my manager found out and terminated me for insubordination, interviewing with a competitor and violation of a non-compete agreement.During the termination meeting, he yelled at me and threatened lawsuits and litigation. He told me they would find me and sue me for taking customers from the company. I had merely interviewed with this competitor and had not accepted the offer.A box of my stuff was hastily packed and I was walked out of the building as if I were a criminal.I filed for unemployment benefits. My company fought the benefits , stating a new reason for my termination.They claimed I was terminated for disparaging the company as well as coworkers on social media. As you might know, this is an offense for which unemployment benefits can be denied.I persevered and hired an attorney.Sometime before my unemployment tribunal hearing, I received a text message from my former manager who said he wished me luck in my new endeavors.When I asked him why he fired me, he texted me back saying, “After putting all my heart and soul into training you and teaching you the business, you wanted to just leave me and I was hurt.”I saved that message and presented it at my unemployment hearing which was decided in my favor because it was determined I had not been fired for insubordination, violation of a non- compete agreement or disparaging coworkers on social media. They said they could not find a valid reason for my termination.Because I had saved all of the inappropriate comments and emails from my former manager, I also had an excellent case against the company which was taken by an attorney on a contingency basis.I ended up suing the company who were caught in multiple lies under oath.And I won a nice sum of money.***Update to comments and questions below…Yes I did take the new job but I didn't sign paperwork for at least a month after my termination to make sure I really wasn't in violation of anything.Some people have suggested I could have just had that manager fired or sued them before I was terminated and here is my response to that:Perhaps. But also unlikely. The company is run by backwards traditional white men whose wives stay at home and bear their children.I had complained about some discriminatory and inappropriate treatment by other sales managers to my manager and instead of taking this up the proper chain of command, he told me to stop being a baby.Also, to give you some insight into what I was dealing with, when they were sued and the EEOC was involved, instead of doing the right thing and investigating the manager, they hacked my old laptop.I kept everything in my work life professional. I never used the company iPhone and only did work on my company laptop.However, I had logged into various sites as was allowed per company policy on my work issued laptop. The passwords from my logins were saved and I, as many others probably do, did not have many different passwords for all my different personal sites.I was suddenly signed out of LinkedIn one day and then my personal outlook account was signed out and I was alerted that there seemed to be suspicious logins.After they found out I was suing, they hacked my dropbox account containing 4,600 pictures and they found 1 picture that was an intimate photo of my husband and I. I was giving him fellatio. They then downloaded all my personal pictures from dropbox onto my laptop and then said they had found pornographic images on my company laptop- a fireable offense and one that might then make my lawsuit void.And so when meeting for mediation with my attorney and their female attorneys and their female HR, they slut shamed me for a good hour. How could they be certain that I hadn't reciprocated my managers sexual messages? After all, here is a picture of her performing fellatio on her husband.We asked that their IT give a deposition as to how these images were recovered. They refused.A great point my lawyer made was that…how is it that they could find all these personal pictures(99.% were of my kids) but they couldn't find the iPhone messages or emails my manager had sent to me that were perverted and inappropriate. We sure had copies of them (because I was smart and forwarded anything inappropriate to my personal email especially after my sales were stolen from me.)This is why we need the #MeToo movement. Getting fired for reasons that even a tribunal at unemployment were certain were untrue and then harassing me and slut shaming me from stolen and hacked accounts is neither ethical nor does it show how far women have come in their work environments.This all happened in 2012-2015– not that long ago.And guess what?That manager still works for the company. So even after losing their money to settle with me because they were wrong…they still kept that man employed.Update-2021My former manager was finally terminated for refusing to remove a confederate flag from his office. He claimed it was his heritage.The president of the company was also just terminated in 2020. The reason? On the president's club trip, he drunkenly groped the wife of one of the employees.It took overt racism and sexual assault to finally remove these men from their position. Most importantly, it took someone speaking up against this behavior to remove them.