Half Hollow Hills Bans the Use of Personal Devices

The recent announcement regarding the mandatory use of school-issued laptops has sparked much controversy among the students of High School West. Over the past 2 years, many students began to bring their personal devices (i.e. laptops, ipads, etc.). This new policy is mainly so teachers can use GoGuardian, which is a web-filtering and monitoring program that allows us to regulate internet browsing, block inappropriate content, and alert school administrators if a student is engaging in behavior that is harmful or concerning. 

Many students feel negatively about this change. A junior from High School West expresses that “the Chromebooks are generally slow, incompatible with other devices, and have many useful websites blocked such as scientific journals needed for AP Research. Due to all of these reasons, I think that other students and I have felt a substantial decrease in productivity”. In addition, many juniors are still using the Chromebooks that were given to them in eighth grade, while sophomores and freshmen received new ones. Senior Rayan Afzal also feels that “the computers they give us to use are plagued with software problems, slow speeds, and not to mention the Chromebooks for underclassmen, which aren’t even usable”. These Chromebooks are deemed as “the slowest of them all”, so when this new policy was announced, juniors were upset. Though many students are upset about this change they have complied due to push from many teachers. Overall, High School West is seeing a change back to the time of Covid-19.  

Although the majority of the students feel as if this is a negative, some teachers are happy they know that their student is doing their work and not cheating on any assessments. By the end of this week, it is the school board’s intention that all students in the district will be using their district-issued laptops. What do you think about this new policy?