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To ensure students understand the significance of having their Chromebooks daily, the expectations must come from the top. Administration must stress the importance of having a fully charged Chromebook each and every day. Please click on the menus below for some tips on creating a Chromebook positive culture at your school.

Expectations

Set the expectation that the students bring their Chromebooks charged each day. What are some ways to remind them?

As they get out of the car in the drop-off line or off the bus, ask "Do you have your Chromebook? Is it charged?"
Put signs up in the drop-off, bus area, and around the school. (Click here for a Canva link to print or edit these posters).

Reward students periodically for having their Chromebooks in class and charged.
- PBIS points
- Praise
- Positive phone calls home
Have a plan for students who do not bring their Chromebooks.
- Consequences
  - Lunch detention
  - Call to parents
- Loaners
  - Establish limits
  - Use Lenovos so they don't want to borrow them
  - Paper alternative assignments

Involve Parents

Right from the start, let parents know at open house, through Connect Ed calls, and through social media that Chromebooks are expected to be at school and charged each day.
Share the Chromebook Parent Information with them. Stress the importance of having a space for it to charge each night, and a routine for putting it in the backpack each morning.
When students forget the Chromebooks, call the parents. Make it inconvenient for them so they encourage their children to bring the Chromebooks charged each day.

Involve the Community

Reach out to local community partners to help spread the message to families

GYAC
Youth Guidance
Local Churches
PTO/PTA
Other community groups involved in your school culture

Device Checkout

At the beginning of the school year, EVERY student in grades 2-12 should be assigned a Chromebook, a charger, and a case. The Chromebook and charger should be labeled. See Chromebook Labeling Procedures.

Ideally, students who remain at the same school would get the same device and case back each year. Although this may take some more advanced planning and organizing, it will instill ownership of that device with the students, and hopefully encourage taking good care of the Chromebook.

In addition to the labels, have students create ownership of their Chromebook. They may add stickers to the CASE (not the Chromebook itself). Another easy way to "decorate" the Chromebook is to use a 1/2 sheet of paper and place between the Chromebook and the case. A great first week activity...

Teachers in one class give students a 1/2 sheet of paper. Ensure their name is large and readable, include the school and grade level. Students could then decorate the paper with school-appropriate drawings, photos, etc.
Students could create them in Canva and turn them in as an assignment. The teacher could then print them for them.
Teachers (especially elementary) could make a half-page that goes along with their theme and place in between the case and the Chromebook.

All of these techniques create ownership for the student, and prevent confusion so they don't accidentally take another student's Chromebook. See the pictures below for examples.

Loaners

If a student's Chromebook is broken and needs to be sent for repair:

The broken Chromebook should be checked in through DART
A loaner Chromebook should be checked out to the student through DART
The Ed Tech will create a ticket and send the Chromebook to be fixed
When the original Chromebook returns from repair, it should be given back to the student

Ensure that you have a distinct plan in place for day loaners.

Set limits to the number of times a student can check out a day loaner.
Consider putting 2-3 Lenovos in each classroom. They can stay with the teacher and not require students to leave class.
Consider requiring students to do an alternate paper assignment. Very soon they will tire of this and bring their Chromebook to class.

What has worked well for other schools?

SRMS was having difficulty with too many students getting loaners from the library. They were loaning out all of their identified loaners each day, often to the same students.

Along with administration, we decided to change the policy to only give loaners to students who had broken devices (while we were troubleshooting them) or for other emergency purposes. Students who did not bring laptops to school or did not charge them would be required to do classwork on paper. Teachers always had some paper copies of the assignment ready for these students.
Ultimately, the students did not like this alternative and very quickly we found we did not have an issue with students forgetting Chromebooks at home. There were no disciplinary consequences as the natural consequence of having to do "written work" was enough to remind students to bring their device in most all cases.

Thank you to Christine Sturgeon, Media Specialist and Jeramy Keen, Assistant Principal at SRMS for this information.

Storm Grove organized their storage space very well. They put them by grade level, and plan to return the same Chromebook to the student next year.

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Thank you to Josee Fecteau, Former Media Clerk at SGMS for this information.

VBHS/FLC had a very efficient system for checking in laptops at the end of the year. They enlisted some teachers to help and set up 5 stations.
Station 1 - Cover Removal - students will keep covers home during the summer and bring them to VBHS for 10th Grade
Station 2 - Cleaning Station - removal of sticker on charger and Chromebook, taking off permanent ink and cleaning the
keyboard
Station 3 - Functioning Station - Is the screen cracked, does it power up, does the charger light up and does the power port
light up? Tape a pink slip for any repairs needed.
Station 4 - DART Station - Chromebook gets checked in to DART
Station 5 - Shelf Station / Summer School Slip Issue

Thank you to Julie Milliman, Media Specialist at the FLC, for sharing these procedures.

Need advice? Who can you contact?

These Elementary lab managers have distribution and collection down to a science:

Brittany Timms - TCE - x8564
Diane Monroe - CES - x8363
Arlene Espinal - FES - x6017

Secondary Media Specialist, Clerks, or other Device Handlers

Josee Fecteau - Was at SGMS - Now at Oslo - excellent collection and distribution procedures
Julie Milliman - FLC - x5665 - excellent collection procedures to check for broken devices
Christine Sturgeon - SRMS - x5210 - excellent loaner procedures