By: Fuyu Banno

Graphics Editor

Students and teachers have taken the availability of Chromebooks in classrooms for granted for many years, and this year, Chromebook carts have disappeared from the Los Gatos High School classrooms. 

Many teachers are upset about this change, especially those in the English department, where Chromebooks have always been essential for testing and other activities in class. Besides covering for students who forgot their devices at home, Chromebooks provide software such as LockDown Browser and AP Classroom, making them an important part of the course curriculum. Many times, such software cannot be downloaded or managed on personal devices. For instance, LockDown Browser is an application on Chromebooks where teachers can monitor students’ screens during testing. Ninth-grade English teacher Kathleen Wehr talked about the effects of not having this tool: “I’ve gone back to paper tests now, just because it’s too hard. I just don’t trust everybody.” She continued, “To be totally honest, so much cheating is going on.”

With the disappearance of Chromebooks in the classroom being a problem, many wonder why the district got rid of them in the first place. Wehr, who has talked to the Information Technology Department (ITD) about the issue, explained how the situation of having no Chromebooks is much more complicated than it seems.  

Chromebooks have long been the go-to technology for many schools because of their affordability. Because of this, schools can buy large quantities of them to provide to more students. However, cheaper things tend to break faster, which is the case with the Chromebooks at LGHS. As a result, the district would have to keep buying hundreds of new Chromebooks every few years, which they cannot afford to do. Additionally, the waste produced by the unusable Chromebooks makes supplying them unsustainable.

From there, one solution would be to buy more expensive Chromebooks that last much longer so the district would not have to keep replacing them. The problem that arises from buying more expensive Chromebooks is the theft of the devices. Wehr described an incident where someone found a backpack full of Chromebooks and came to return it to the school. In another case, in the beginning of the school year, someone broke into the school library and stole several Chromebooks. If those Chromebooks had been any more expensive, it would have been a bigger loss for the district.

For those who may not have known, Chromebooks are still accessible to students, just not in large quantities in the classroom. Chromebook carts are available in the school library, and many classes still have a couple of Chromebooks for students who may need them for the day. For those who may need them for long-term use or to run specific software, they can go to the tech department and either borrow a device or work towards another solution.