Minga, our proposed savior, has fallen. Hoping to remedy Tech’s notorious attendance, our principal, Mr. Price implemented Minga, a digital pass that failed miserably and cost Tech 5000 dollars. So what happened? Were there budget cuts? Complaints? What failed?
According to Mr. Price, it came down to money and the pure practical reality that Minga never really worked. OUSD applied for a grant to fund Minga, but it was declined, making continuation impossible, and not all staff members used it faithfully.
He does admit, however, that neither he nor the culture keepers “always had the app up on their phones to check if a student was supposed to be out—the visual purple passes are more effective in this respect.”
One of our culture keepers, Joshua, tells a similar tale: Despite culture-keeper training in the use of Minga, ultimately poor planning and oversights in the app rendered it ineffective.
Joshua says there were no notifications to let the culture keepers know when the students were out, forcing them to resort to the previous (and ineffective) form of hall monitoring: directly asking students their names and where they were going. Minga was not simply unnecessary; it fostered an environment of distrust between students and culture keepers, prompting the students to just lie about their names.
“Minga is a waste,” he said, before elaborating on how physical passes work far better and can be checked quickly.
Minga was not only tough on culture keepers. Some teachers feel that there was never any real issue with physical passes in the first place.
Ms. Haugen says Minga was just “a solution looking for a problem.” Unlike Joshua, she found the Minga app difficult to use and was never taught how to navigate it. It was not only pointless but a major hassle.
“Education should generally stop spending on technology and more on people,” she said. In other words, we need to rethink how we spend our money. Is it more important to play around with unnecessary tech or to improve necessities like usable bathrooms?
Mr. Price held out hope originally because Minga “worked at a smaller school where all the teachers agreed to use it and [he] was hoping for the same.” However, he was ultimately forced to conclude that “we are a large school on two campuses and that was a challenge.”
Culture keepers, teachers, and even our principal have come to this consensus that Minga just was not working. Now all signs point to absolute physical pass domination.