VHS Students Barred From Using Personal Laptops
- Josie Martinez
- Jun 5
- 3 min read
With two months until the end of the 2024-2025 school year, the administration of Vashon Island High School has begun fully enforcing the policy regarding the ban of personal laptops during classes. Students are confused with this implementation, with many not knowing the reasoning for this change in policy and have come to no answers.
Many students have been voicing their feelings on this rule, commonly expressing their annoyance.
“Besides the fact that students want to use their own belongings, I think the little to no explanation we’ve been given about why this rule is in place is what’s causing a lot of the frustration,” said Senior Devlyn Rouse-Riley.
Other students share a similar sentiment regarding the policy.
“I understand why it’s there, and I can see what the reasoning they put into it is, but ultimately I think it should be up to the student if they want to bring their own personal computer or not,” said Senior Gus McSheehy.
Given the time of year this has happened, it has come across as something that came out of nowhere.
“We didn’t really get any warning at all, it just kind of happened and we were expected to follow it,” explained Rouse-Riley.
When asked if the admin had been transparent about the change in policy, students said that they hadn’t been.
“Not really, the only reason I know [this is in place] is because my dad has told me why it is, but I don’t think the admin has done a good job at explaining what their reasons are,” McSheehy added.
Teachers have also shared that the reasoning for the implementation of this policy was unclear.
“I am not 100% sure about why the rule was put in place. I think it’s about safety … my guess is that we lose that ability to [monitor students safety] when students use their own computers,” Algebra teacher Lisa Miller said.
“The problem I have with it is that it limits people having their own stuff,” Miller continued.
She echoes the same feeling that students have regarding the time of year this was executed.
“I agree 100% that it would’ve been great if we were clear on it from the start of the year, I think the idea was there from the beginning of the year,” Miller continued.
Administrators have a different stance on the issue, while still recognizing the student body’s feelings.
“It isn’t necessarily a new rule, it’s just an application of maintaining a safe digital environment which is something that we do on the Chromebooks,” said Vice Principal Sabrina Kovacs. “When we realized that all of the work we do to [maintain a safe environment] doesn’t work when a kid brings their own devices we were like ‘oh, we have to do something about that,’” Kovacs added.
Following the fact that this wasn’t a completely new implementation, some clarification was given about why this is happening now.
“Sometimes we have to enforce things, or be more consistent, or be a little harder on stuff because it’s not just for the students to listen, it’s so that everybody follows suit, and it happened in the middle of the year because we didn’t know that not everyone was following the policy,” Kovacs added on.
When news first came out about the implementation of this policy, there was confusion surrounding the disciplinary process.
“It’s not the same process as with phones. It was determined that it would be kind of too much for teachers…in order to kind of uphold the safe digital environment and not ask teachers to do more work we decided to just [have them] write a discipline referral and we’ll talk to kids,” Kovacs communicated.
The rule has caused students and staff irritation, feeling that their opinions have not been taken into consideration on what makes their day-to-day life easier. Ultimately, students feel that the lack of communication has been increasingly frustrating as the policy has been implemented for a few weeks now with no clear answer as to why this has taken place.
Comments