It’s just Wednesday. However, this half-week has been much more strenuous that many of my full weeks. Most of that has been due to the computer recycling company that we used to remove the old computers from our schools.
Old computers are a MAJOR problem for schools. First, computers take a lot of abuse in a school setting. You just can’t get as many years of service from a school computer as you can from one in a home setting. It’s hard to explain this to a taxpayer. For non-functioning computers there is the problem of disposal. We can’t send these to a landfill. It’s an even bigger problem if the computer is still functioning. Because of concerns with student data on hard drives, we can no longer just sell the computers.
So, last spring our school board authorized me to work with a computer recycling group that would give written assurance of drive erasure. I made the arrangements, and on Tuesday a truck showed up to pick up our nearly 700+ computers, plus some odds and ends of non-functioning equipment. The fun was just about to begin.
First, the crew arrived at our district office. From appearances, these characters were ones I’d never want to meet alone on the street. One actually came into our office with an unlit cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. I was beginning to worry.