UPDATE: RPS205’s Educational Technology Director Susan Uram responded to the Highlights on June 6, who blames the late response on routing issues. The statement provided said that the district made this move in order to ensure that necessary updates are installed. The full statement and the original article are below.

“The change was made to force a log out when the lid was closed for several reasons. When students are not doing a full power down of their devices daily, as was requested by IT, the browser does not update properly.  This may not sound important, but Google pushes out updates very frequently and if the browser does not update then apps, add-ons, extensions and other tools do not function correctly. We get frequent calls from students who are having trouble accessing their learning materials because of this kind of issue.

Secondly, we are needing to update and add to our apps, add-ons, extensions and other tools on a fairly regular basis and if a student has not done a full power down, they will not always have access to the additional functionality.  This is a problem when teachers need a new app added for their students, but again, if students are not doing regular maintenance of their browser, it can cause a lot of lost learning time and frustration for the teacher and student.

The Chromebook you are issued is for the purpose of learning, collaborating and being creative with your school assignments.  In order to keep them up to date and nimble for all of the various ways they are being used and reduce frustration, we needed to ensure that each device and browser are as up to date as possible.”

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If you closed your Chromebook for just one second and opened it up again you will have seen it restart. You might have thought it was just your computer, but it turns out, you’re not alone.

On April 6, after internet access was restored, students found their Chromebooks restarting on their own.  Students found this problematic, they closed their Chromebooks in between classes, and lost their tabs in the process.

The auto-restart was not the only problem, however. Students also reported certain extensions being removed and copy and paste being disabled.

Though no official word was given about the issue, rumors spread about a potential reason, but said rumors have not been confirmed. Multiple requests for comment by the Highlights to RPS205’s I.T. department have been unanswered at publishing time.

For now, students are trying to cope with the issue. John Coyle, class of 2025, says he is bothered by the change.

“When I’m trying to go from class to class, it’s not helping me at all,” said Coyle. “It’s kind of annoying to be honest.”

Others are not bothered by the change.

“I don’t mind it really,” said Jiovannie Reyes, class of 2024.

Since questions remain unanswered we have no certainty on if this restarting issue will continue.