Laptops are given out to North students every year and have become a necessity in a classes that rely very heavily on online lessons and activities—and there was a noticeable shortage this year.

The amount of students that need them is significantly higher than last year, which already leaves Cram without enough devices. In addition to this, some students never returned their devices, or returned them broken.

Barb Glaze is in charge of the Cram room, and monitors the amount of iPads and devices loaned to students.

In order to deal with the shortage, iPads were distributed to freshmen without devices. Before that, however, some teachers were asked to give up their devices so students could use them.

Some of the iPad users are new students, such as Edward Zhao, a North freshman. He  enrolled at North in September, when his family moved to Bloomington. Luckily, he was given an iPad without a wait. Freshmen were placed higher on the waiting list, because they were originally the only ones that would go without devices.

On the reverse end, North senior Jacob Harris attended Bloomington High School South in his junior year.  But when he made the switch to North, he was not at the top of the list for a device. He was assigned an iPad within three to four days, and it took that long to get a device that was functional.

Glaze’s troubles were only starting when she found there weren’t enough devices by the end of the first school week of the year. After finding that some devices were unreturned, she made calls to the students’ parents. During one conversation, all she was met with was ‘They [the student] won’t be coming back.’

Not only were several devices not returned, but some were damaged or tampered with, and it wasn’t just the devices themselves. Styluses were bent or missing, and Glaze got one charger back with the wrong charger head entirely.

When she ordered more chargers and styluses from HP, the company the school made a deal with to supply computers, she was met with several difficulties. It took three weeks for 75 chargers to be shipped and delivered, even though they had previously stated that the chargers would be there sooner. When she tried ordering 200 styluses at the beginning of the year, they told her that they wouldn’t arrive until September.

So, while some dens were given computers, like Mr. Henry’s freshman den, they went without chargers or styluses. Some students have been asking other students for use of their chargers all year.

But there is good news; more chargers and styluses are supposed to arrive soon, and the iPads are working for those who didn’t get devices. Though not everyone has a device, every student has some sort of electronic implement that they can use in class to get their work done. Glaze is working to make sure the devices are functional and available, which is all that needs to be done at the moment.