With COVID-19 changing things in nearly every aspect of life, Chromebook distribution took longer than anyone hoped for. With the devices backordered across the country, the high school found themselves without enough to go around when school started in August. Instead, core classes kept class sets and students checked them out as needed if they were quarantined. With part of the school’s order finally coming in, everything had to be gathered, re-processed and then distributed. It took staff, with student help, a week to get it all done, but the devices are now in the hands of students.

“This process was very chaotic with getting all the computers and chargers and having to re-number them,” assistant principal Lu Olvera said. “We had students help us tag the computers, which made it so much smoother and faster.”

The time and effort it took to organize through the computers were overwhelming. Some students had a device because they had initially been remote students or had been quarantined at some point. It made the process more difficult, but in the end, it all worked out.

“Some students already had Chromebooks like the dual credit students,” Olvera said. “We made sure they had theirs checked out before we handed any out. Then we had to give students that had to quarantine Chromebooks, so the computers were a bit scattered.”

COVID-19 and remote learning meant that schools across the country were putting in orders for the devices, which are popular for school use because of their affordability. Usually taking just a few weeks to ship, the units were initially expected to take six weeks to arrive and ultimately took five months. When they came in right after the Christmas break, the processing started.

“The pandemic meant that items like Chromebooks were on backorder and they took much longer to arrive than they should,” Principal John Clements said. “We were caught in a bit of pickle with not having enough for everyone, so we decided to hold off on handing them out.”

No one expected the shipment to take an entire semester, though. Teachers found themselves having to balance online work with printed items since most students did not have devices at home.

“We were lucky to have Chromebooks for the core classes, but we still had to adjust our schedules since working at home was not possible for so many of our students,” English teacher Melonie Menefee said. “It was just one more thing to adjust to with the pandemic.”

The campus did a fast turn-around with processing and handing out devices so that teachers could get back to assigning work virtually, which has been more important than ever with so many students quarantining. It was especially important for subjects like English, whose curriculum is entirely online.

“We are so glad we finally got the Chromebooks handed out,” English teacher Lauren Rodriguez said. “It makes it easier to give students work, and they have access to contact us through emails if they need help. I am so glad we got them.”