<p>Now that March 10th has passed its time for the really important questions. </p>
<p>Do your children use the laundry service? I am thinking of having my daughter wash her clothes and just send out her sheets and towels. Thoughts? </p>
<p>Do you have your child use a lock on thier laptop when it is in their room? I saw online some lock you put on your laptop with a cord that attaches it to something (like the leg on your desk).</p>
<p>We had a HUGE, sometimes acrimonious but otherwise useful debate on laundry service last year at this link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/984300-will-you-signing-up-your-bs-child-laundry-service.html?highlight=laundry[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/984300-will-you-signing-up-your-bs-child-laundry-service.html?highlight=laundry</a></p>
<p>We signed up, by the way–Exeter’s service is relatively inexpensive (though it’s annoying to pay for both mandatory linen service AND optional laundry service). Our son has to wear dress shirts every day and does sports every season so has lots of stuff to be washed. And I think he’s one of those kids who would just keep wearing stinky clothes rather than wash them. Anyway, he used the service regularly, and is so busy we’re happy to take one task off his shoulders. Dorms have laundry machines though, so it wouldn’t really be a big deal to do it–it’s more the folding and hanging, and potential mess/extreme wrinkle/stink factor that pushes me toward splurging for the service.</p>
<p>My son’s dorm locks automatically–kids need a keycard to get in–so it’s pretty secure. I don’t think he even locks his room most days–locking his laptop would be overkill. Then again, they don’t take laptops to class–don’t know if that would make a difference? If my kid had a lock, I don’t think he’d remember to use it…</p>
<p>We were encouraged to provide laundry service at Exeter- glad we did. Between sports and academics, he really would have little time to do laundry. It is hard enough to get him to remember to put out his laundry bag, let alone do laundry. As far as the laptop lock, seems a little much. As the previous poster mentioned, the outside dorm doors lock automatically. Our son is in a small dorm, so maybe I would feel different if it was larger. He did have missing cash at one point this year after leaving his wallet in an unlocked locker at sports practice and now makes sure not to bring any to practice.</p>
<p>I will not wade into the laundry service debate, it is a personal choice and do what makes you comfortable. My d has done her laundry for the last two years without any problems with managing her time. </p>
<p>As for the computer lock, some schools do not have locks on dorm room doors, like SPS. My d has never had anything stolen from her room and I have never heard of items being stolen at SPS. She once said that no one at SPS would steal your computer, but ice cream in the dorm refrigerator might disappear in minutes.</p>
<p>Yes, check out the old thread in regards to laundry service. Looking back, my reasons to get the service were valid and my d loves it. We will keep it.</p>
<p>Coming from the big bad city, Chicago, I was very worried about stuff like computers, personal items and even clothes. What I soon learned that I had nothing to be worried about. All kids have computers, ipods or the like. Most places the kids dont lock doors except when leaving campus for breaks.</p>
<p>Most bs live by a code of ethics, and the kids take it seriously. Our school even post lost and found on the web site. My only concern is if my d can keep up with her stuff—lol.</p>
<p>“Do you have your child use a lock on thier laptop when it is in their room?”</p>
<p>Each student at my daughter’s school has a locked drawer in the chest of drawers. Whether they use it is a different question. From visits to schools, many students in all the schools leave their backpacks (with, I assume, laptops and ipods inside) all over the place. If they’re at boarding school, you can encourage prudent behavior, but you can’t make them behave prudently. </p>
<p>If you want your child to lock the laptop to the desk, how about sending her to school with a desktop? I’d think a desktop would not “walk” out the door, even if it weren’t chained to anything. </p>
<p>Laundry service is a hot topic. It’s too controversial to touch. 
Check the old threads.</p>
<p>If I thought a laptop lock was necessary at my son’s school, I would have thought very hard about whether it was the kind of community I wanted him in. </p>
<p>Laundry service for my boy? Absolutely. It’s awesome and I wish I could get the same rate at home! He has the look sharp plan so all his coffee dribbled ties come back dry cleaned on a card, slacks pressed and hung, dress shirts crisp. I think this whole package was around 600 bucks? But Exeter is cheaper than most schools because the company is based out of Manchester and they have so many accounts that they must cut the Academy a special rate</p>
<p>If I had a girl at Exeter, I probably wouldn’t do the laundry service because few things would need pressing with that dress code.</p>
<p>Love Neato, but she’s 150% wrong on this issue. Laundry Service…no way…kids need to learn to do their own laundry AND be busy with school work. It’s a basic personal habit. The pattern should be set now.</p>
<p>A number of boarding schools (as Alexz noted) have a culture of trust that pervades the campus, making the need to lock up rooms and computers unnecessary. If parents are trying to decide among options right now, the degree to which a school follows a code of ethics (the need to lock stuff up is a material example that it doesn’t, at least not in a practical sense) should be an important data point. Behaviors and values are heavily shaped from 13 - 17 years old.</p>
<p>I’m tickled by the laundry discussion. So many passions on such a simple issue. We offered - my D turned us down. She’s frugal and likes doing her own laundry. Her stories about “laundry politics” and trying to get to the machines in her dorm first are hilarious. She’s laughing and it’s part of the culture in her dorm. I tell her we can dry clean some things at home during vacations. And since SW has free baggage, she hauls any leftover laundry to catch up.</p>
<p>On computers - code of culture says doors are often not locked. But she does have a drawer that she can lock for things like her passport, cash, etc. In general, girls are walking in and out borrowing clothes and bumming snacks and I hear it’s reciprocal.</p>
<p>As with all things - check the culture of your specific school for details.</p>
<p>About laundry - I’m making sure my son learns how to do his own laundry now, while he’s home, and I’d expect him to do the same at bs . . . except for dress shirts, slacks & ties! It’s all well and good to say he should learn how to do this stuff, but I can’t afford to replace it on a weekly or monthly basis while he’s learning!</p>
<p>As for locks - I just looked at the website of one school that was recommended recently as a possible “late admissions” school and was rather appalled to discover that they require students to lock their rooms whenever they go out. Sorry, but that’s not the school for us. Locks instead of trust and integrity? Thanks, but no thanks!</p>
<p>My D’s school requires locked dorm room doors, but not sure of the compliance rate. Certainly my D and her suit mates don’t.
Sent the laptop lock but it was never used.
I wouldn’t worry too much.</p>
<p>As far as laundry - since part of the attraction of BS for me is to help ''grow up the child", I am happy she is learning some basic domestic habits! Mundane as they are, I’m convinced benefit from as much reinforcement possible.</p>
<p>@dodgersmom,</p>
<p>You really need to take a giant step backward and take some of the emotion out of this process.</p>
<p>Did it occur to you that a school that asks students to lock their rooms might be promoting safety for the students - not because of other students - but because of it protects students against intrusion from outsiders?</p>
<p>Every school is different. Some are isolated and in close knit towns, some are closer to busy cities and have different rules to protect students.</p>
<p>Choose schools based on where your son fits not what inconsequential “rules” they have that suit the kid but not the parent.</p>
<p>I was on a trip last week with my younger son, when in the middle of the week he announced it was laundry night and what did I have to give him to wash. I was caught completely off guard and quickly came up with a few items so not to look so bad. Needless to say they do their own laundry where he is at school.</p>
<p>I won’t delve into the laundry issue as it’s been discussed ad nauseam and I think I even posted on the linked thread.</p>
<p>As for locking up one’s laptop- overkill, mate. On the broader topic of theft- it’s much rarer at bs than you’d think. With everyone’s stuff being open to theft at least part of the time [mxers generally lock their doors but of course personal items are still left places daily], lots of theft would be detrimental to the community. However, it does happen from time to time. Some things are just to be expected [unmarked/out-in-the-open goodies in the fridge]. Items of greater value go missing [and turn up!] far more than they get stolen. Just keep your door locked [if possible] and your valuables hidden [or in a personal safe if your school provides one- mx does].</p>
<p>We got the laundry service - but to each their own…
For computer, I bought my son a computer lock, he used it the first week of school, then never again. Doesn’t lock his door - although he could - and has never had anything taken from his room. However as said by another poster, food in the common room fridge seems to disappear unless your name is written in huge letters on it!</p>
<p>cdn-my d says food in the fridge is typically fair game—lol. Luckily for my d she has glutton-free food and ensure so her stuff seems to be more safe than other stuff like peanut butter.</p>
<p>Girls and boys are the same when it comes to food in the fridge—lol.</p>
<p>On the Deerfield campus, remember extremely rural, bikes are typically not locked. This concept blew my mind upon first seeing it that I took pictures to show my city friends and family!!!</p>
<p>Before my ridiculous story, I have to say that if you can afford laundry service get it and if you can’t then don’t. My son did his own at BS and it didn’t kill him but it sometimes got in the way of having fun for a couple hours on a Sunday, and sometimes broke his concentration as he worked on a paper when he needed to go switch and fold. So much growing up goes on at BS, laundry is a minor consideration as far as learning responsibility goes. Then again, for some, it can actually be more challenging to remember to put out your laundry bag on the right day then to do it yourself. </p>
<p>OK…here’s my crazy (long) laptop story…</p>
<p>One Friday night, my son was in the main building and realized he was going to be late for check-in so he rushed back to his dorm. Once in his room, he realized he’d left his laptop behind. The Proctor said he couldn’t go back to get it and on Saturday morning, it was gone. He notified his Dean and his advisor and he checked in at Lost and Found and Security…nothing. He went to his classes and borrowed a friend’s computer to send an e-mail asking if anyone had seen it but realized his e-mail password expired because he kept putting off making the required change. He couldn’t get through to tech support because it was the weekend. </p>
<p>On Sunday, it was suggested that he check out a laptop from the library to get his work done and see if it turned up the next day. We talked to his dean and told them that perhaps we would activate the Lojack on the laptop if it wasn’t found by the next day. He told us to be sure to tell him if we decided to do that. By Sunday night, he hadn’t heard back from anyone at tech support so while he studied, I attempted to reach anyone at the school’s tech support to fix the password situation. </p>
<p>On Monday morning he got a new password from a very PO’d tech guy who acted like my 7:00pm message had been late at night. I also got an e-mail wanting to know who had given me his phone #. Really? What’s the big deal? And why the heck isn’t someone on call to pick up messages once a day from kids who have a problem over the weekend? So…now he’s got a password but still no computer. After sports and dinner, he tried to check out a laptop again. Nope…all checked out. He called me a little frazzled and I reminded him that he could work at the library, he just needed to get permission to leave during study hours. So, he did but he’d wasted a good bit of study time running around. </p>
<p>Hundreds of miles away we were fretting over the situation. It had been 72 hours and still, no laptop so we called the Lojack people to figure out how it worked. Evidently, if anyone had logged onto the internet from his laptop, they would have been able to track it by the IP address but probably only to a building…not a specific dorm room. Still, we figured it was worth tracking, especially because we had no idea if it had been taken off site. The Lojack people said they needed a police report # to turn it on so, reluctantly, I called. The cops were not particularly interested until I said we had Lojack at which point they got a little excited. I asked if we could just open a report for the number but not send anyone to talk to my son until the next day, I just wanted to activate the Lojack and see if we got a hit…and let him do his homework. They said they would have to check it out that night if they gave me a report # so I asked that they not go to the school until the end of study hours so I could alert the dorm parent and Dean that they would be coming. I imagined a quiet scenario where my son went over to the Dean’s wing and gave them basic info for their report…no big deal. </p>
<p>Wrong. I barely had time to notify folks that they were coming before they arrived, went to my son’s dorm room and banged on the door with their flashlight scaring the crap out of his roommate. The dorm-parent sent the roommate to run to the library to get my son, who had no idea any of this was happening. In the mean time, he had finally logged into e-mail and found a message from his math teacher who had come across the laptop, thought it might be my son’s based on a less than common first name on the screen, and hung onto it for safe keeping. My son, of course, sighed in relief and kept working, knowing that he could get it from his Math teacher the next morning…until his roommate appeared telling him to hurry back to the dorm 'cuz the cops were there to ask him questions! He went back and explained that his Math teacher had it and all was well but they wouldn’t leave until the teacher brought the laptop back and handed it to him. They lectured everyone and left.</p>
<p>Tuesday morning, the Dean called my son in and gave him a hard time for not reporting that it had been found in the 15 minute block of time between his receipt of the e-mail and the arrival of the cops. I guess it was ok that the Math teacher never said a word to anyone other than an e-mail to one kid who may or may not have owned the laptop. He also never turned it in to Security or Lost and Found. Maybe it’s because he was pretty sure he knew who it belonged to but my son had class with him on Monday and he never said a word. Absent-minded? Perhaps, but I’m still struggling a little bit with that one.</p>
<p>So, other than having it confirmed that our son is a knucklehead, here’s what “we” learned…
<p>OMG Kaileigh! What a great (not really, but you know what I mean) story!</p>
<p>We need to compile a book of stories like yours for the BS Parent’s Bookshelf. Really. We do.</p>
<p>I agree that it would be fun to have a thread of stories!</p>