By Beth Pinsker
NEW YORK, Sept 3 | Tue Sep 3, 2013 6:29pm IST
(Reuters) - In the couple of weeks since the Academy of Our Lady in Marrero, Louisiana, began its school year, three of the 450 students have already broken their school-issued iPads.
One got crushed by books in a backpack, and one got dropped on the ground while a girl was running for the bus. The third - well, it just "mysteriously" cracked, the teenage student told Melinda St. Germain, technology director of the Catholic school.
As kids across the United States head back to school this fall, they are likely to have some kind of device with them every day. More and more students are either bringing their own or getting one from their schools, from small private academies to the Houston Independent School District, which is handing out 17,000 laptops in high schools this year.
Studies show that electronic devices, particularly mobile ones, tend to break when kids are using them.
SquareTrade, which provides extended insurance policies for these products, says that 50 percent of parents report that their kids have damaged an electronic device, costing families some $2.8 billion over the last five years.