IT Room Damage.

[bwestlake]

Hi all.

 

We are experiencing alarming amounts of damage in a few of the IT Rooms, admitiativley some of them are quite old and are due for replacements over the summer, however the head may not allow us to do them until the damage has decreased.

Also rooms that are only 2-3 years old that are not slow are also getting damaged.

 

Keyboards, Mice being cut. cables being unplugged...

 

We have put all of the PCs on brackets under the desk to try to stop them damaging the PCs but they always unplug them!

 

What are you guys doing to deter/stop damage to your machines?

 

Many Thanks

B

[DeltaBravo]

Are they in the rooms unsupervised?

If not then I think you should target the teachers before you do anything else.

[Geoff]

You can mitigate the situation with CCTV somewhat. This will allow you to identify the culprits and punish/bill their parents. However this doesn't actually stop them doing the damage in the first place. Generally preventative measures need to be taken by the staff using the rooms in question. Basically not leaving pupils in the room unsupervised. It's also worth pointing out this is usually a symptom of a wider problem in a school, if you address the underlying issue then this problem will disappear.

[tekins]

Agreed - classroom management is where to start, maybe posters up saying leave this room as you find it - could put photo of how you expect it to look.

 

Check rooms each morning if possible so you know at the start of the day everything was ok, possibly not your job, but it is more likely to be left tidy if it starts that way.

 

Posters saying CCTV in operation (even if it isn't) work wonders.

[themightymrp]

We've had this same problem for years. Unfortunately you are reliant on the member of staff in the room being vigilant and actually reporting issues! We have CCTV in a bunch of rooms but when staff don't report problems for days on end it can be a ball-ache trawling through footage to find who did it.

 

In our worst rooms we have provided pre-printed sheets showing a room layout. The member of staff teaching in there has to initial the sheet at the start and end of lessons to say they have checked everything is in place (nothing obviously damaged/unplugged). They also have to write any faults onto the sheet showing which machines have the issue(s) and hand them to an admin office person after the lesson.

 

Cumbersome but has helped so far...

[Novalee]

CCTV is helpful - once a few kids are traced for having damaged equipment it seems to deter others in the future. We cable tie all cables to the machines as well to stop things getting stolen. But staff being in the rooms and being attentive is really important I reckon.

[bwestlake]

The Rooms are supposedly supervised, but we don't understand how a whole row of keyboards can be cut/swapped around damaged....

 

We don't want to go down the cctv route as the teachers may complain about privacy ect...

 

The school is quite hot on damage atm as £3000 worth of maintinace in the toilets was trashed after 2 days.

[themightymrp]

We've had very similar damage done. It usually happens when a member of staff is in the room with a very large group as opposed to a small one. They spend time helping one particular student and, while their back is turned, all hell breaks loose!!! Staff need to be drilled in the art of giving a room the once over before they leave - and that includes checking PC's where "no student was using it".

[TechMonkey]

The Rooms are supposedly supervised, but we don't understand how a whole row of keyboards can be cut/swapped around damaged....

 

We don't want to go down the cctv route as the teachers may complain about privacy ect...

 

The school is quite hot on damage atm as £3000 worth of maintinace in the toilets was trashed after 2 days.

 

I'd say stuff their complaints. Either ignore them or tell them the alternatives are to top slice all departments to cover the repair bills or to bill the last department that used the room when damage occurred. As for supervision, make sure the rooms are locked at break and lunch and then maybe for a week blitz them by checking each room after each use. Its a pain but it will focus the teachers and students minds. Throw the book at any student caught doing anything silly or any member of staff not toeing the line.

 

I've found the only way to stop this kind of problem is to go all out guns a blazing. If staff don't like it they need to be more watchful. If students don't like it they need to treat the rooms with respect, which includes reporting damage.

[CamelMan]

As everyone says its more of a staffing / crowd control issue than a IT one. However we are the ones picking up the pieces afterwards. Most damage for us occurs when students get into rooms unsupervised which is currently what I am working on stopping.

 

We cable tie all the cables at the back together to prevent the unplugging issue - doesn't stop them but it does reduce the amount.

 

I am also looking at replacing the machines with space saving ones with cable guards, everything above the table in plain sight and all the cables are behind a panel. Costs about £400 a unit tho Could run some figures of fixing and maintenance vs initial spend if you needed to justify to SMT.

[Grey-gear]

One place I worked at had a similar thing happen, one thing the we did was check the rooms every lesson for a months and the damage stopped after a while. Also we started charging the teachers department for the damages and this caused the teachers to be more vilage in the computer rooms.

[tobiasclarity]

We dont get as much damage here as i did at the last school i worked at, however anything that is notcied or observed the first step we take is just to revoke access to the IT room for the whole day apart from timetabled lessons and go from the peer pressure angle. As we are a boarding school we are unable to entertain the idea of CCTV in the IT classrooms but i think as someone else has suggested maybe start looking at speaking with SMT and have the teachers addressed to be more vigilant

[6Foot2]

The Rooms are supposedly supervised, but we don't understand how a whole row of keyboards can be cut/swapped around damaged....

 

We don't want to go down the cctv route as the teachers may complain about privacy ect...

 

The school is quite hot on damage atm as £3000 worth of maintinace in the toilets was trashed after 2 days.

 

I feel your pain: I am tearing my hair out.

 

On the subject of room supervision I was called to one of our network rooms yesterday to address an Adobe CS5 issue. While I was working on the problem I saw two students who were clearly off task. One had picked up a mouse by the cord and was swinging it so that it hit the keyboard/mouse of the other students' computer [The teacher was right next to them] I asked them to stand to one side and then asked them what they were doing.

 

"Workin' innit?" came the reply. After much to and fro I asked them to remain standing and got the teacher to talk to them. While I was walking away I caught some of the conversation which took the tone:

 

"Come on. Network Support is giving me a hard time here. Don't do that while they are in the room" rather than telling them that they can't use the computers and their work will have to be submitted hand-written, parents will be notified etc...

 

Before you ask it wasn't a big class: There were no more that 10 students in the class.

 

This member of staff is one who complains all of the time that the computers in his room do not work. We know why now!

 

 

Rant over.

[Davit2005]

Are they in the rooms unsupervised?

If not then I think you should target the teachers before you do anything else.

 

I agree, I think this is a human problem not a IT problem. How much do they want to spend to fix and protect PC's against wilful damage.

 

If your car is slow you don't start smashing it to bits do you.

[alemanyorks]

We had quite a few issues in one particular room mainly with cable being removed from the back of machines, when we updated opted for some Viglen Genie Pro which have a cable guard shield fitted on the back & that has stopped pretty much all of that. They just loosen the network cables from the wall sockets now, little darlings

[TechMonkey]

"Come on. Network Support is giving me a hard time here. Don't do that while they are in the room" rather than telling them that they can't use the computers and their work will have to be submitted hand-written, parents will be notified etc...

 

I may just be grumpy today but if I heard a teacher being that unprofessional I would have interjected with "Don't do it when I'm not either" very loudly.

[X-13]

I may just be grumpy today but if I heard a teacher being that unprofessional I would have interjected with "Don't do it when I'm not either" very loudly.

 

Either I'm equally as grumpy, or you've got the right idea.

[6Foot2]

I may just be grumpy today but if I heard a teacher being that unprofessional I would have interjected with "Don't do it when I'm not either" very loudly.

 

To clarify: Those were not the words used but rather that was the tone. I was disappointed that there was no sense of the students being told off but more a conversation between friends saying "That got a little out of hand..."

 

I wanted more severity form the teacher to stress to the students NOT TO DO THIS AGAIN!

[X-13]

To clarify: Those were not the words used but rather that was the tone. I was disappointed that there was no sense of the students being told off but more a conversation between friends saying "That got a little out of hand..."

 

I wanted more severity form the teacher to stress to the students NOT TO DO THIS AGAIN!

 

You need to get all Earl Lemongrab up in there.

 

[i would post a youtube video to show it exactly... but my sound isn't working. "No audio device installed".]

[JJonas]

We don't want to go down the cctv route as the teachers may complain about privacy ect...

 

CCTV works both ways. What if your CCTV installation protected a teacher from a false allegation?

 

We also cable tie everything, use scripts to record logged on users, have inteligent locks(Salto) on ICT rooms and have a log book in the room for staff to sign to say the room was in good order(this doubles up as a fault log, they know we check it so they write the problems down)

[bwestlake]

we have all the it rooms on the generic classroom key so they all have access.. some still don't lock the doors. and if they are not timetabled into the rooms they book tjem via roombookingsystem.co.uk and also we use impero which records logins, but staff don't let us know until the damage mounts up.

 

also we got an email yesterday.. "You do realise that a lot of things will still not be reported as even I often do not have time to log on to my e-mail during the lesson if I am only here for 1 lesson or have time to write the e-mail while I should be teaching" which is quite anyoing as if they don't report the computers as not working then they will complain that they are unable to teach as the computers are not working...

[JJonas]

With our Salto locks you assign a card to a member of staff. That card has a list of doors can be opened. If there is a problem in a room you can interogate the lock to find out which member of staff opened the door.

[bwestlake]

anything you guys have done to get more staff to be vigilant on this topic, but as most of the ict suite rooms are on the room booking system, it has became an issue when trying to find out which class has caused the damage as things don't always get reported?

[Geoff]

Two methods. The simplest method, but more time consuming, is to check the rooms before/after a class uses it. However this quickly gets out of hand once you have more than a few rooms. The more sustainable method is to ask teachers to report any problems at the start of the lesson. If they find any you just bill the previous teachers department/check CCTV/Whatever. If the previous teacher kicks up a fuss it's still their fault as they didn't do as they were asked and report problems. Simple and self policing at that point.

[bossman]

I too feel it is a classroom management problem and have relayed this message to SLT in a bid to get the staff to be a little more vigilant when using the IT suites, we don't have a great deal of damage.

 

SLT have relayed that they will name and shame any member of staff who doesn't follow the proper IT room protocols and also charge the damage to the subject even if they deny all responsibility so it is in the best interest of every member of staff to comply for if they don't check and report any damage prior to their lesson starting then they will be held accountable anyway.

 

This seems to have them fired up as they have to fill a form in on the teachers desk stating if they had any damaged equipment and if they have logged it with IT support. I make regular trips around site and make random inspections usually after a lesson has started so they then have no excuse, I then report anything I find to the SLT and my line manager.

 

Not cured all but nearly all