Unexpected school expense am I being unreasonable?

[Sally]

No. YANBU
That’s mad.

[Unnamed Poster 8]

Post Deleted

[Penny]

You're not being unreasonable, that is crazy to give you such short notice. Our school uses iPads and we knew this when we applied to the school so at least we had a year to get the money together. There should be no need for an IPad for TY and IMO they should be able to wait until 5th year.

We now are in the opposite position, the school are going for books for 5th and 6th year and we have no choice but to buy them even though we paid the guts of €900 for the iPad 4 years ago. DS1 prefers the iPad so he can have the books at home and download the ebooks to the iPad and use that for school. Thankfully though the cost has been kept to a minimum due to a book purchase scheme run by the school.

If a majority of parents complain the school will have to engage with you about this.

[Clara]

Our school has changed to a Microsoft school but we were first told in November, another meeting in Jan and final meeting in May. I have to buy two laptops and books for a 1st and 5th year!

[mrs munch]

I don't think YABU at all - ridiculously short notice. I think there was a school in Rathoath where the parents forced the school to reverse the decision made on adopting ipads. My kids are in an ipad school but we were well aware in advance. Anecdotally the senior cycle kids normally prefer books, I presume they've used the ipads again in lockdown & wriggle are trying something new (i think) locking us in again for the senior cycle this year - it's being questioned

[Juney]

My DD's secondary school is an ipad school and we still have to buy her books too. The last two years she hasn't used the books but we still need them for the barcodes to download the books onto the ipad?!?
Its such a waste of paper and a huge expense every year.

[Jenna]

YANBU.
That is ridiculous. Definitely push back!

[Tobo]

It seems you've bought Microsoft/similar or Apple/similar and they want you to use the opposite.
Seriously, they've some neck after what people have gone through in the last year.

From experience on getting to the BOM, I had a similar issue, sent to office to forward on to bom, never happened.
So sent a registered letter to chairperson of BOM directly, in my case it was the PP.

[AIBU]

Thank you all. I kind of knew I was not being unreasonable. I did email the school and got no response. I only have numbers for two other parents and they've both emailed too and got no response either- one of those parents has 20 other parents sending letters too.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, someone mentioned a weeks notice, it wasn't a weeks notice, it was about 6 weeks notice- the TY meeting was at beginning of May. As far as I knew the meeting was about TY, trips work experience etc - the fee for it is 450 which I am fine with as it is an expected expense. Then at the end we had to endure a presentation from Wriggle. Presented as in this is what is happening. Not a sales pitch. The breakdown is the device 500, Wriggle fee of 120 (covers 3 years), heavy duty cover is 50, then insurance 6 euros per month for 3 years. There's some other part too which I can't remember. Guts of 1k. for a device when he has both a tablet and a microsoft laptop ( as they used MS teams) which were more than sufficient for online school.
Can they remove him from the school if he doesn't have one? Hopefully I'll hear back from either BOM or school. I will try sending a letter directly to the chairperson.

[Groucho]

You are not being unreasonable at all. If they must go entirely digital (and the jury is very much out on the merits of this, by the way), then the way to do it is by consultation, not landing a unilateral decision on parents. What kind of software is this that it can't run on your existing laptops anyway?

[luxie]

I wouldn’t be handing over my laptop to a third party. So what if the kids use other apps on it?
Presume they won’t be able to while in class??

€700 for a device is quite expensive especially with books on top!

[pichet]

That's ridiculous, why do they need it now for TY?? Sure they dont need any books for TY. If you cant contact the school do nothing, dont buy the device, your child will not be at any disadvantage in TY and take it up with the school in September. Do you have a parents council maybe approach them.

[NellyNoggin]

That's ridiculous, why do they need it now for TY?? Sure they dont need any books for TY. If you cant contact the school do nothing, dont buy the device, your child will not be at any disadvantage in TY and take it up with the school in September. Do you have a parents council maybe approach them.

I would have thought the same. TY is a transition year and not a year where books are needed. I wouldn't consider ty to be senior cycle, ds only had one maths book, everything else was projects and/or handouts to give an idea of different subjects for lc.

If the school do decide on devices for senior cycle, they should only start at the beginning of 5th year.

[lois Griffin]

I don't think YABU at all - ridiculously short notice. I think there was a school in Rathoath where the parents forced the school to reverse the decision made on adopting ipads. My kids are in an ipad school but we were well aware in advance. Anecdotally the senior cycle kids normally prefer books, I presume they've used the ipads again in lockdown & wriggle are trying something new (i think) locking us in again for the senior cycle this year - it's being questioned

My DD & DS ( come Sept) attend that school. The issue parents had is that the students had no books - not even e-books.

The change from iPads only was made after an independent panel carried out a review.

I agree that wriggle are terrible to deal with & the “locking” of the iPads is a joke .

The schools now use a mix of books & iPads in class. The iPads are owned by the school & only used in class . They also use MS teams for notes etc


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[janeymac]

It's absolutely ridiculous. You genuinely wonder if people are so removed from reality that they think families will just have that money lying around at short notice. Do people have a clue?