tanya - I hadn't thought about the cost of leasing. I was just happy to hear they still make kids use computers and write things out. It's too bad there isn't an option to buy, but it's good they're using up-to-date computers. Our computers at the school lab were always very old. I remember my father (who worked with computers) being really annoyed that we were being taught on systems that were so obsolete. At a time when most of us had computers that only had CD drives, our school was still using 5 1/4" floppy discs.
When I was in school we had a website we had to submit our work to, and it verified for the teacher that the work wasn't plagiarized. I remember reading something on the site saying that all work submitted belonged to the site, and I had planned at that point on being a writer, so if I thought a story I wrote was good, I wouldn't submit it and I'd write something much worse to submit. lol.
I didn't realize highschool was 6 years there either. Here it is 3 years. I think in most of the US it is 4. We have jr. high from grade 7-9 and high school from 10-12. Some places are bringing in the middle school model with grades 6-8 together and grades 9-12 together, which I think is a better fit.
Also, I don't mean any offense to the teachers here. I have quite a few friends who are teachers, and they are just as frustrated as the parents.