Have you been a victim of slow-loading laptops or laptops that die suddenly?

The new laptops that will take residence in each classroom will load faster and last longer.

Beginning sometime in October, each classroom will receive 10 new Lenovo laptops and a charging cart.

Media Specialist Heather Fields said that the new Lenovo Thinkpad 13 laptops are funded by Wake County and are reserved for student use, rather than for teachers to use. Teachers received new laptops in the spring semester of last year.

“Wake County passed an education bond several years ago to provide funding for schools and laptops for both students and teachers,” Fields said.

Currently, students have access to roving carts with 15 laptops each that teachers can check out for student use.

However, these computers are showing their age and suffering from the wear and tear of students removing and replacing them in the carts each period.

Senior Kaleigh Stites has experienced problems with school laptops in the past.

“They’re always slow and lagging, they die unexpectedly, they lose information and they never load the log in screen,” Stites said.

Creative Writing, Speech and junior English teacher John Cook signs up for the two English Department carts on a regular basis and said there is a big need for working technology for his students.

“It’s a digital classroom in higher education, and it should be that way here,” Cook said.

His students use laptops for everything from writing their stories, poems, and reviews, creating presentations and using Google Classrooms.

“The benefit of having laptops onsite is valuable because the students have no excuses for not doing their work,” Cook said.

The advantages of saving environmental resources also motivates Cook to have his student use laptops.

“We’re in a digital world where the less paper we use, the better,” Cook said.

Fields believes the new laptops can help teachers integrate more technology in their classes on a daily basis.

Fields said, “As Wake County moves towards the Bring Your Own Device program, there has to be devices accessible to students who don’t have technology.”