When the district purchased laptops for every student, the library at Central High School became the epicenter of support.

By Ann Sheehy

There are 2,212 laptops in circulation at Central High School, and the librarians go through all of them at the end of the school year.

When the school laptops are turned in at the end of the year, they don’t just sit in the library all summer until orientation. The librarians sort through them, set aside ones that are marked as broken, and check the computers back in. Then technicians come, fix the broken ones, and reimage all of the computers–wipe the memory and reset the system for the next student.

Central’s librarians try to get started on sorting the laptops as early as possible, but the majority of students need them until the very end of the school year–the last final and the last period–so they can’t do much until after students are gone. And then it’s a mountain of work. According to Jayne Leusink, Central’s head librarian, “We physically touch every single computer.” They use the green slips to tell which laptops are broken, and then they sort through piles of random stuff–chargers and bags that either have missing stickers or don’t match the computer they were turned in with. Leusink says she does her best to match chargers with the correct laptop; students are fined for missing items.

The librarians rely on teachers to collect computers from students. All sorts of people help bring laptops to the library on the last day of school–secretaries, parapros, etc.–and they help with the sorting as well. The library is filled with piles of computers; Leusink says that “it’s huge, and it’s a little bit intimidating,” especially when they’re in the middle of it. Even with so many people helping, it’s a massive task to deal with all of the laptops. Last summer it took a solid week after students were gone to get through all the computers, according to Leusink.

During the school year the librarians are also greatly involved with student laptops. The Rapid City School District has a team of IT technicians, but there aren’t enough of them for a person to be stationed at every school. So the librarians end up functioning as IT for CHS students; according to Leusink, they can fix about 70% of the computer issues students have, and the rest they send to the district’s IT people to be repaired. Because of the sheer number of laptops, most of Leusink’s job has become helping with computers, rather than what’s usually a school librarian’s job.