High schoolers in Spokane Public Schools will now have to check out a laptop for school, rather than be issued one automatically

Spokane Public Schools will no longer automatically issue each high school student a personal laptop for school work, instead pivoting to a process in which students must request a computer to use for the year.

The district made the transition to a checkout system in middle schools last year, providing classrooms with collective laptops, called “computers on wheels,” to use during the day.

Superintendent Adam Swinyard said around 30% of Spokane pupils used their computers outside school, according to a software on the school computers that tracks when they’ve connected to the internet.

“The kids that never needed a laptop, they’re indifferent. Like, ‘Great, I don’t have to pack it around,’ ” Swinyard said. “And the kids that need a laptop, they can go check one out.”

The shift will save the district in replacement and repair costs, Swinyard said, as laptops go through annual “wear and tear” like missing keys or dents from students dropping them or stepping on them.

“We’re definitely going to save money in repairs, because instead of checking it out to almost 2,000 kids at LC, we’re going to check them out to maybe 20 or 30% of those kids,” Swinyard said.

Swinyard said many kids have their own personal computers that they use outside of school, preferring them to the school-issued laptops.

That’s not the case for all of their pupils, like Lewis and Clark juniors Claire McConnell and Isabella Jimenez, who rely on their school laptops for just about every element of school life: homework, research projects, studying for AP classes, making PowerPoint presentations, writing essays and applying for jobs and colleges.

“I would say it’s mostly online,” McConnell said, noting some classes use more paper assignments than others.

Jimenez doesn’t have a computer to use at home aside from the one she gets from school. McConnell only has the desktop she shares with her parents and four siblings.

Though both will be able to get a computer upon request, they don’t like the change from just having a computer automatically assigned to them since middle school.

“Next year, I’m obviously going to have to buy my own computer, now, and a lot of kids are going to have to,” McConnell said.

Jimenez also hopes to buy her computer with money earned at her summer job.

Though school laptops will be available for checkout, using one will create “a stigma,” she said, and make clear a class divide between her and her more affluent peers. Jimenez doesn’t want to feel singled out next year as someone in the likely minority who will use the school computers.

“It kind of creates this divide between people who can and cannot afford nicer things, like laptops,” she said. “And when you’re made aware of that divide visually, then it comes into play socially, which is not good or healthy for a learning environment, somewhere that’s supposed to feel safe like a school.”