Always struggling

I picked up a laptop from a school district yesterday. I worked with it from home because I needed to test it outside of work's network. This district has a consultant tech person who claims to have installed a program that will filter the school district's equipment when it goes home with the student/faculty. I visited said district a couple of weeks before Christmas and I had my doubts.

I proved my doubts yesterday when I brought a district laptop back with me. Our establishment blocks (at the very minimum) p0rn sites and pr0xy sites. Limewire was added years ago as a blocked site. This is the safe site I use to test the minimum filtering level. It is better than going to a p0rn site to test and much easier to type in than the test page developed by the filter company.

So, there I was on the laptop (which had video issues until I found a way to fix that) getting to limewire regardless of whether I connected wireless or wired.

Now, I get to tell the district superintendent that his "friend" is a con. Well, of course I won't. Don't you remember I was written up for writing the phrase "waste of my time" in an e-mail? Of course you do. What I will do is tell the district that this consultant must have "thought" he had it installed but when tested, it just was not working properly. I wonder how much money they spent on the program that does this (150 licenses were purchased) and how much they pay this consultant?

Now, being 52 years old, I have met quite a few people in my lifetime. I could tell when I first met the superintendent and this consultant that they were two peas in a pod. I did not like either of them from the first few moments that I met them.

Yep. I am struggling. Always struggling. Trying to keep the faith with what I see in school districts. I will remedy the situation because the filter is my domain. I will get the program working correctly because that is what I do and that is the right thing to do.

How can people live with themselves? You want to know one of the phrases this consultant used with me when I met him a few weeks back?  "Yeah, the students think they are so smart. I just sit back and let them muck up the computers. Just more money for me."

The guy has the district "bamboozled".  It isn't my "normal" district. In other words it is outside my territory. But because this involves the filter, I am required. I will hand this matter over to my tech director and let him handle it. Nothing will get said to the district. I've seen it before. I have been here 17 years. We can advise the districts but they do what they are going to do.

Does  your child/grandchild go to this school district?