At least one Kansas district is projecting $150,000 to $180,000 just to equip secondary students with individual phone lockers, according to the Wichita Eagle. The state provided zero dedicated funding. Every dollar comes from local budgets.
Districts choosing fabric locking pouches — think Yondr, the magnetic-lock system concert venues use to keep audiences present — face an estimated $30 per unit. Statewide, the Kansas Division of the Budget put that figure at roughly $13.4 million if every student received one, according to the Lawrence KS Times. Lockers require a steeper upfront investment. Neither option came with a state check attached.
Legislators passed the policy. The price tag was someone else’s problem.
It is long past time cell phones started to be regulated in schools. (And nationwide, but that’ll never happen.)
BUT…
…what gets me is the money angle here. Can anyone out there help me understand why a temp-use cell phone locker is $180,000? To me, this just screams government malfeasance, and I’d bet someone involved in the passage of this bill either owns a company or took a bribe from the company that wants to sell $180,000 cell phone lockers that people are forced to buy.
Followed some links and did some googling. The school district in question is USD-261 in Haysville, Kansas. The high school should have about 1800 students, so they would need 67 of these cell phone lockers. The price for 6+ is $1510, but let’s knock another $110 off since they’re buying 11 times that many, so $1400. That’s $93,800, for just the high school, and that’s before we talk about where the hell you’re going to put 67 of those things, and who you’re going to pay to install them and do any necessary renovations to accommodate them.
I’m probably going to make a YT video on this later this week.
Do you mind if I use this info? Happy to credit you, just message me how you’d like it attributed and if you want me to shout anything out for you.
Go for it. I don’t need any recognition or anything. A couple disclaimers:
1 - I’m not from the area in question, but I work in the public sector overseeing spending, so I thought it was an interesting exercise in understanding the scale we end up dealing with. So my comment is just a demonstration. None of this is actual information about the specific school district’s plans. I’m assuming they must be getting their lockers even cheaper than the ones I found with a quick search, because with my numbers you’re blowing past $180k pretty quickly once you scale it up to the whole district.
2 - I used this site for the student population. I didn’t cross-reference it or anything, so I have no idea how accurate it is. It states 5788 total enrollment, with 31.2% at Campus High School, so that’s where I got the 1800 students. It looks like the district serves multiple southwestern suburbs of Wichita, which makes a little more sense since the total population of Haysville itself is under 12k.
The 180k price tag seems to be for the outfitting of the school district and not just one school.
They say that Kansas City spent 150k and that’s presumably one of the largest in the state.
It’s also 180K for a 15-20 year refresh cycle. These are commercial units that are used in harsh environments… not a cabinet you buy once and it sits in your bedroom.
Add in wiring plus the install costs and $180K seems like a good deal
“Used in harsh environments” like a middle school office where it gets opened twice a day?
Wiring for what? It’s a locker…
100% behind phone lockers, but, I do agree the price seems too high for this specific implementation. Looks like those hold ~250 phones each and I’m going to guess should cost $500-$1,000 per locker. A school should only be spending $5k-50k on these lockers.
Right?
$180,000 is absolutely insane. You could literally just get a lockable file cabinet from the 80’s or something and put each phone in its own file folder a few hundred.
It’s for the entire district, and the costs don’t seem that high to me.
14000 slots for students means it’s $12.86 per student over (typically) 20 years…
$0.64 per student per year seems reasonable.
This isn’t for one school, this is for the entire school district. Kansas City SD has 14,000 students across 33 schools. You also have to take into account paying for installation and shipping of 60 of those lockers.
Corruption.
It’s for the entire district, and the costs don’t seem that high to me.
14000 slots for students means it’s $12.86 per student over (typically) 20 years…
$0.64 per student per year seems reasonable.