Last week, many SCHS students opened their school-issued Chromebooks only to find that the ability to use multiple accounts had been disabled.

According to Vice Principal of Attendance, Technology and Discipline, Terry Flora, the SCUSD technology department discovered that some students were using their personal accounts to download unauthorized applications, including various games, Spotify and Netflix onto their Chromebooks.

By restricting access to personal accounts, the technology department eliminates this ability, only allowing district-approved apps to be available to the students, Flora said.

“When you’re accessing apps that aren’t district-approved or for learning, it takes away from (the Chromebooks’) purpose,” Flora said.

For some students, the change is an inconvenience. Many said their extra-curricular activities are organized through their personal accounts.

“I primarily use my personal account because it has my emails for Girl Scouts and non-school activities,” sophomore Maile Wong said.

Like Wong, senior Daniela Dayen said her club information and college applications are all managed through her personal account, which is now much harder to access because of the restrictions.

“I have all my club presentations and sign-in information saved on my personal account, so I have to add my school account to the drive and switch my presentations to that account,” Dayen said. “Which is extra work and a hassle because everything was laid out before on my personal account.”

For some, the school-issued Chromebook is their only computer. They are left with only their phone for access to their non-SCUSD Google accounts.

“I only have a family computer that isn’t available all the time,” junior Daniel Kingsbury said.

Junior Aliyan Alam agrees. He is at a loss for how to overcome the change.

“Even at home, I cannot access my personal account,” Alam said. “So I don’t know how to combat this.”

Many students feel allowing only school accounts is too much. According to senior Kylie Chang, the original purpose of the Chromebooks was to provide a service to students, not restrict them more.

“We were given laptops so that all students would have access to similar resources and that financial issues would be less of a limiting factor in receiving an adequate education,” Chang said. “Some students may not have extra computers at home, and this ban has probably had an even larger impact on them.”

The disabling of multiple accounts on the Chromebooks has caused much unrest with students and has left many wishing to return to the original freedoms of the laptops.

“To monitor us 24/7 like this and restrict our access to our personal (accounts) along with our (school) Gmail doesn’t feel right,” Kingsbury said.