2305 - 86th Avenue N.E.
Bellevue, WA 98004-2416
March 12, 2001Via E-Mail and Hand Delivered
Mr. Bernie Noe, Head of School
Lakeside School
14050 — 1st Avenue N.E.
Seattle, WA 98125Re: Mandatory Laptop Program
Dear Bernie,
I appreciate your invitation to meet with my wife Catie later today to discuss Lakeside’s new mandatory laptop program. I have accepted the invitation in her stead because of a scheduling conflict she has been unable to resolve. Because I won’t be to attend tomorrow evening’s Curriculum Night, I especially welcome the opportunity to meet with you on this issue. And I think it important that I put in writing the reservations that Catie and I share about the laptop program.
Let me begin by saying that Catie and I are neither chronic complainers nor Lakeside malcontents. In our seven years now as parents of two Lakeside sons, we have never registered a concern over a programmatic direction taken by the school. Indeed, we believe that under your leadership in particular, Lakeside has been moving in a very positive direction. While I could quibble over a particular curricular decision or two (and an occasional quibble is only to be expected), I am confident that our two sons are receiving wonderful educations at Lakeside. You have our committed support of your ongoing efforts to improve Lakeside’s curriculum and faculty.
Now for the vinegar after the oil. While we have not raised the red flag of rebellion before at Lakeside, both Catie and I are in full hue and cry over both the merits and the manner of Lakeside’s implementing a mandatory laptop program. Catie, the Microsoft-y (and the more technologically-versed of the two of us), has already sent you an e-mail (a copy of which I am enclosing) that lays out many of our concerns. But I am also highly skeptical of the projected benefits that mandatory laptops are presumed to confer, particularly in light of the reservations expressed in Judy Lightfoot’s 2000 evaluation of the Laptop Pilot Project.
Is a mandatory laptop program the best way to ensure that Lakeside students have the necessary technological skills to succeed? Is there truly a sense that today’s Lakeside students are not computer-savvy? How many Lakeside students are indeed without a computer at home? Is laptop learning really the best curricular approach to take in every class? By requiring laptops, is Lakeside placing outsized emphasis on the importance of computer-based learning at the expense of other, proven methods of pedagogy? Are we simply keeping up with the other prep-school Joneses, in the name of technology?
These are not idle questions. We believe they have not been sufficiently aired in the Lakeside community at large. It is indeed the decision-making process regarding laptops that we most object to. Your March 5 mailing to parents makes it clear that the decision to proceed with the Laptop Program was made quickly, and we think too quickly. Laptop Task Force #2 was convened in mid-summer 2000 and made its laptop recommendation to the Schools Committee in early September, a scant two months later at best. The Board of Trustees adopted that recommendation at its September 2000 meeting, without eliciting further comment by either faculty or parents. This is unseemly and unnecessary haste.
Aside from our dismay at feeling railroaded by the process, there is the cost issue. A $2,000 laptop is not a mere incidental educational expenditure, on top of Lakeside’s already rich diet of extra expenses. Though the March 5 mailing acknowledges the additional financial burden that a laptop purchase places on Lakeside families, I don’t believe these concerns have really been taken seriously enough by the administration. It is no answer that the school offers financial aid for laptop purchases. Most of us don’t qualify for Lakeside financial aid now, and I for one am in any event loath to undertake the detailed financial disclosure ordeal required to apply for laptop aid. So we are simply saddled with an additional $2,000 cost item, on top of a yearly Upper School tuition bill that now tops almost $17,000, an eight-percent tuition increase over the 2000 bill.
Lakeside’s tuition increases over the past two years have admittedly been greater than in previous years. You acknowledged as much in your February 2000 letter to parents. Such increases are never pleasant to levy, and few of us parents complain because we know that quality education is expensive and because we support your efforts to make Lakeside even better. But when chronically rising tuition is coupled with a mandatory $2,000 outlay that many of us continue to question, the combined level of financial pain causes me to cry out in protest. Continued tuition increases are hard enough to take. But a laptop adds insult to injury.
And the financial insult is a continuing one. Those parents whose children are in the ninth grade or lower face the prospect of mandatory laptop replacement in another three years. For our part, our son Charlie will end up with a laptop that will inevitably have to be replaced in two years when he enters college, since it doubtless will not meet the requirements of whatever college he attends.
Doug Schuler has sent you a series of well-written, reasonable, and dispassionate e-mails about the laptop program. He is a computer professional and better equipped than I to address all the issues in detail. But suffice it to say that Doug’s concerns are shared by a number of other Lakeside parents, who like him are not mere Luddites. We agree with Doug that there is simply no demonstrated need to implement the proposed laptop program schoolwide by next September.
I therefore urge you to suspend the mandatory laptop requirement until faculty and parents have a chance to make their voices heard in a more open process. Again, I look forward to discussing these issues with you today in person and appreciate your willingness to listen, though I fear that the laptop train left the station some time ago. And while at the end of our meeting we may still disagree on laptops, please be assured that I know your views are motivated by a sincere desire to do what is best for Lakeside students.
Sincerely,
Richard R. Wilson
cc (via e-mail):
Members of the Lakeside Board of Trustees
Catie Wilson
Doug Schuler
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