TLDR: High school senior trying to implement linux at his school.
I am a high school senior. Because I accidentally did not dual boot and trapped myself on mint, I have ended up using Linux for ~5 years. This led to me discovering the FOSS community as a whole, which genuinely amazed me as I never knew software could be free before that.
Fast forward to today and my entire workflow is on Linux. I primarily use FOSS tools, although I do like the google suite.
My first two years of HS were in a public charter liberal arts school with no technology. I transferred to a public one my Junior year.
When I got my school computer it was running Windows 11 and ran like crap. Probably ~80% of the computer's resources were used passively by proprietary monitoring software. Within two weeks I ended up tinkering with the computer and dual booting Debian (If you are a student please do not do this). I was mainly extremely pissed at how slow the computer was, but was also scared of the idea of companies watching me.
What shocked me was how well the computer ran. I knew it would be fast, but because the computer had a great display and was touchscreen, I ended up using it as a personal laptop. I did all my schoolwork on it and it genuinely felt like an amazing computer.
I did little tricks to make it hard for anyone to tell I was on Linux, but I mainly remember looking around me and seeing just how miserable everyone else was. Their computers ran like shit. No one would get any work or learning done because of random crashes, incredibly long loading periods, and absurd Windows quirks.
Anyway I started talking to the school IT about it. Apparently it was because Windows was "Job-Compliant." Most students and teachers used the google suite, so I thought that was dumb.
Regardless, I ended up volunteering with the IT person (I was interested in IT at the time). I spent a ridiculous amount of hours fixing computers and doing generic IT things during my lunch periods and before school. After I thought I built good rapport, I drafted a pretty detailed plan to implement Linux on the computers and utilize a FOSS ecosystem.
It was straight up ignored. The IT tech got rotated with another from the district and I built rapport and proposed the plan again. Once again it was ignored (but this tech was quite a character).
I should mention how a lot of this was also fueled by a bit of a misunderstanding as well. I totally thought (because I misheard) that retired computers were just thrown into the dumpsters. My plan was actually more geared towards redistributing the retired computers to under deserved kids in the reservations, Linux was just a part of that.
I ended up volunteering at a local tech recycler. I made them an auditing tool for refurbishing and also helped them setup a PXE booted system to be more efficient. The recycler was great because they installed FOSS software on old hardware and were open to change. I still help them in my free time.
Anyway, this fueled me to help out the third IT person on rotation. The new tech is very nice and seems open to new ideas.
I REALLY REALLY want the school to use linux. Now I feel like I have a chance. My schedule is relatively relaxed as im taking less classes, and I have a lot of equipment from the recycler to help build a pilot. The experience with the school computers is genuinely amazing with Linux, and so many of the kids at my school I feel deserve a second chance with computers. They all treat the laggy experience as commonplace, and it makes me so extremely sad. I take this from a students perspective. I feel like if kids understood the world was not constrained to some of these walled gardens (there are many more out there both digital and physical), it would change their outlook on life, showing them that there are so many options everywhere. I do not want to make myself sound "enlightened" but I truly think the students at my school would be more willing to learn if the district made the one change. Bad experience with the computer creates friction, and ultimately the slightest friction in learning is what determines whether or not a student chooses to do something.
This gets to why i even made this point. I fully understand that an IT person does not have much power in a bureaucratic school district. I also understand that my school already has deals with Microsoft almost forcing them to use their ecosystem. I also know that legally FOSS software is a nightmare if you want to avoid liability. I have no idea if the shift would be possible, and its making me feel so helpless.
I am wondering if anyone has any idea if it would be possible for something like this to happen. I reviewed the Penn Manor implementation but my circumstances are so different.
