Hundreds of JHS Students Without Chargers

What’s in your backpack? Probably not a computer charger.

Hundreds of students at Jordan High are missing or don’t have the charger they were given by the school in the fall, according to Ms. Montgomery, the JHS media coordinator. “It’s sad,” Montgomery said. “I would expect if you (students and their families) lost something that belonged to the school, you’d replace it, but that doesn’t seem to be the mindset.” 

Budget cuts throughout the district mean lost chargers aren’t being replaced by the schools, and that’s causing issues in the classroom when many students show up with dead computers and no charging cord to power them up.

In Ms. Egeland’s class, old-school methods are making a comeback because many of her students don’t have their computers charged. Although she has a clever idea by setting up charging stations in her classroom, it’s not enough. “This problem has been really consistent,” Ms. Egeland said. So consistent, in fact, that she has cut down technology use in her classes and returned to paper and pencil assignments so everyone has access to the classwork. 

“I prefer doing work on paper anyway, because my computer doesn’t hold a super great charge,” says 9th grader Lucas Christie. The charger issue has led both teachers and students to look to the future and see a potential solution in paper. “Everybody should be moving more towards paper,” Ms. Egeland says.

Ms. Egeland isn’t the only teacher working to solve the charger conundrum. “I usually offer Falcon Feathers to students who are willing to lend their charger to others,” Mr. D’Angelo says. Charging stations in classrooms and frequent charger sharing and borrowing has become a more common occurrence in JHS classrooms. 

However, some students use the lack of a charger as an excuse to disconnect. “Sometimes, maybe, students are hoping that if they don’t have a charger they can say, ‘Oh, I don’t have my computer to do the work,’” Ms. Egeland complains. 

While that may be the case for some, others want to work but say they cannot. “I let someone borrow my charger, and they never gave it back,” said Christie. Many students say that their lack of a charger is a result of lending it to a classmate and never seeing it again. “In my second period, this student asked if I had a charger, and then I forgot to get it back at the end of class,” 10th grader Anijah Smith states. 

Ms. Montgomery encourages students who’ve lost their chargers to search for them at home and if they still can’t be found, look to replace them for about $15 each. She adds that she doesn’t know if there will be new chargers sent to JHS in the fall, “but if you turn in a charger this year, you’ll get the same charger back in the fall.”