This year presented a new opportunity for the Wake County school system to offer free Chromebooks to any students who need them. 

Heather Fields, media specialist supervised the distribution process. 

“We started the week before students came back to school, and we distributed a little over one thousand ChromeBooks so far,” Fields said. 

There have been some issues with the distribution process. 

“I am worried about the number of students who are eligible for a device and haven’t yet picked theirs up. We have about 700 of those,” Fields said. 

A few years ago, some would have never imagined that WCPSS would be able to provide county-wide, free Chromebooks. Fields was pleased by how fast the process happened. 

“I think five years ago I could see it moving in this direction, regardless of the pandemic. I am surprised at the speed with which they have managed to roll out a one to one program,” Fields said. 

Although the distribution process went smoothly, there were some technical difficulties that arose involving the Chromebooks and how well they worked. 

“I know that the process of that is frustrating because if it’s a hardware issue or sometimes even just a software malfunction we are not able to fix it. We have to put in a ticket to the county, and then we are stuck sort of waiting for them to respond,” Fields said.

Many students have questioned what would happen if they accidentally lost or broke their laptops. 

“Every student is eligible to get one second device, sort of no questions asked,” Fields said. “If something goes wrong with it, the district will replace it one time. If it happens again, and it’s something like a cracked screen or a hinge is broken, what they would consider negligence, then they are able to become a day user for a chromebook.”