End of Year Student Asset Collection Process: Chromebooks, Chargers, Insurance

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Love this discussion, especially as we all head towards the end of the school year! One thing that immediately comes to mind is adding a user custom field to batch check in. 

How are you logging the insurance? 

We do have the custom fields enabled for batch check out and like that feature! It would be neat if that was available for batch check in and asset check in as well. That way, we could add additional columns to the table in the image below to be able to show a custom field, such as one related to insurance, for our convenience without needing to open that user’s profile in the flyout or a new tab.

We have a custom field indicated if insurance was purchased this year and then a separate custom field showing if they’ve already used this year’s insurance.

My previous district had 14 buildings to support, and around the same number of devices to collect across grades 5-8. We provided the classroom teachers with spreadsheets containing student name, Chromebook serial number, and columns to mark off what was returned. We also asked them to take a glance for major damage.

Thanks for your reply! That’s how our district was operating up until about 4 years ago. We found that our margin of error was too high with our current employees. Devices were being returned in poor conditions, spreadsheets weren’t completely filled out despite receiving the device, etc. But with 14 buildings, I see why you’d have the need for that setup!

It’s certainly not perfect, but it was the best way to keep the devices in the students’ hands as long as possible. If the tech department had to do all the collection, teachers were looking at up to a week with no Chromebooks, and no one liked that idea 😂

Do the parents actually pay the fee?

Our high school (9th-12th) has about 1,330 students and any system I’ve used since 2021/covid/1:1 has a leak. I hover around 150-200 devices that don’t get returned from students by the end of May. One good thing we do is the student keeps the same chromebook for each year they return, and hopefully they show up in August with their device if they didn’t return it in May. Teachers in charge results in misinformation on check-in sheets, students in charge results in “forgetting” to return their device. I just need like 3-4 core people who know exactly what to do and what to look for. I’ve had student council volunteers and more than 4 non-library staff, and it almost always creates more work for me to double-check what happened. Whatever tweaks I do this coming May, I can only hope for the best.

Some do, some don’t.

     Whenever a laptop is damaged, I make sure to write notes describing the damage and take photos, attaching both of these directly to that student's fee in Fee Tracker.
     I use a view to get a list of all the students who still owe a fee. About once a week, I use Fee Tracker to send out a bulk email to these students and their parents. I find that being consistent with emailing the Fees each week really helps to bring in the payments. This email lets them know what amount they owe, gives them my email address for questions, and includes a link so they can pay online through our district’s website. Many parents will pay or will at least reach out to me for more information (or to argue).
     The fees will follow students until their senior year. In the last month of school, I will manually export a list of students who still have fees. The idea is to hold back any of the “fun stuff” until their fees are paid, such as senior field trips and activities or even getting their diploma. We have a couple of great 12th grade teachers who will help enforce this.

I feel your pains! What does that check-in process look like in your HS currently? Are you having teachers use these check-in sheets and examining the devices at the end of the year? How do you organize that volume of devices during check-in and ensure each student gets the same Chromebook the following year? Do 12th graders have an option to keep the device or does it get collected and added back to inventory?

Sorry, long reply: Yeah, each device stays with the student every year. We have each student come to the library and return their device and charger, but not every student will do this (I forgot, I didn’t have time, I did early finals, etc.). Tables are designated by alpha for last names, the student places their device there (with hopes that the student/staff volunteer is checking for chargers at that table), and chargers go in that table’s charger crate. I use small red dot stickers if their charger is “at home” and a yellow dot sticker if it’s lost. I then take about a week to enter damages fines, lost charger fines, and organize by alpha last name and grade to prepare for fall check-in and device pickup in August. We ask students to report any damages but I still check each device because students can lie. 🙄 In the fall at pickup, students with red dots DON’T get a charger because they said it was at home. Yellow dots means they must pay for the lost charger first before we give them one. No dot sticker means they returned a charger. Finally, yes, our seniors have option to keep the device. If they return it, we’ll happily take it back and reuse them for loaners during help tickets on their assigned devices or for backup testing chromebooks during assessments (AP, PSAT, SAT, state testing, etc.).

We are a middle school w/ 1:1 DELLs. Our 8th Gr students are expected to keep devices for their transition to HS. (They only turn in if moving from district). Our 6,7 th Gr students have the option of turning them in to us for safe keeping over summer or just keeping them. If they want us to house, they are checked in IQ, labled and alphabetized for easy check out in fall. We then create a spreadsheet of  devices stored and check the same computer out to the student who turned it in. - Our families asked for this option. 

I love the idea of insurance! Repair and/or replacement cost can be a hardship. 

Just to make sure I understand you correctly:

All students come to the library to return device and charger. Each student places their device on a table and reports the damages, (I assume you return the laptop in IIQ here) and use a red dot sticker on the laptop for “at home” chargers and yellow dot sticker for lost chargers. You enter fines for damages laptops and lost chargers. Organize laptops by grade then by last name. 

Then in August, during the check-out process, students with red dots don’t get chargers since they have one at home already. Yellow dots must pay for the lost charger before they receive one. No dot means they returned a charger and so you just assign one.

1. Are you recording the damages you ask students to report in Incident IQ or what does that look like?
2. What’s the benefit of the stickers? I imagine it is faster during check-in. But in IIQ, you can check-in the charger which unassigns it from the user. Then you would be able to look at IIQ or export a list to see what students returned their chargers and which still have them.
3. I’m also curious about the students who have lost their charger and must pay the fine before receiving a new one. What is your payment process look like? Do you accept cash/card at the same table you’re checking-out devices?

Feel free to PM if you’d rather!

This is my first year in the IT role and our first year doing check in with iiQ. We are a small rural district and only our 9-12 have 1:1 laptop. Thank you all for the comments this is really helping come up with ideas for our check in process. I just have a couple questions.

1- Do you image all your 1:1 each summer?

2- When taking the checked in laptops I see comments on sorting but how are you storing them?

My thoughts were to have students drop laptops off in the library, I liked the suggestion of having one person inspecting while another does the iiQ check in. I was planning on using some sort of sticker to indicate any with damage just for an easy visual along with putting the tickets into iiQ.  Even though we are a small school I’m still looking at around 500 laptops to sort and store. We currently do not take chargers in as students can replace damaged throughout the year and lost chargers they pay for the replacement (we normally have a few in the front office they can purchase).

On the in-house insurance, can you message me with more details on how that works, we have been considering new process for our district. 

In my previous district, we opted for rolling metal cabinets to store our tech stuff. Something like the item linked below:

Seville Rolling Cabinet

They held up remarkably well. I think we stored ~200 devices in each one so we wouldn’t overload the shelves with the combined weight. I wouldn’t say they’re easy to move when full, but it IS doable.

For a while, we would have printed sheets with a Chromebook diagram to use for marking damage. We transitioned to just a sheet with areas to check off (keyboard, screen, etc).

Messaged!

For me, our current collection rate for technology fees for our ≈ 24,000 students floats around the 25% mark. That adds up...

Thanks for sharing everyone! I am loving this collaboration! I can imagine it is hard to enforce the paying of those fees. I know in my old district, we weren’t allowed to walk at graduation if we did not have all our fees paid (but that really only applied to seniors). 

We do a turn in the last day of the year for about 500-600 laptops. We do batch check in and then add the fine for whatever they’re missing. We charge for missing bag, power supply and stylus. And of course screen damage/ chasis damage incurrs a fee.  I really like this because it already has the name of the owner of the laptop. I just select a drop down for the fee and have a prepopulated message as well that will show up on the invoice.  You can download the invoice and email the parent if needed. 

We then found a filter that allows you to sort by how many fees are owed. If the student turned in a laptop and has a fee of 0 it’s considered a full turn in. If they turned in the laptop but have fees >0 then they get flagged as not a full turn in. 

We withhold the student’s grades until that student has turned in everything and/or has paid all fees. 

The only downside is that we can only input one fee at a time. Often times, there are several fees for the same student. So it takes a bit longer to add that fee. But overall it’s a pretty quick process. 

I love this discussion. We do many of the same things. This year we are planning on letting our rising high school students keep their Chromebooks for the summer so they can complete summer work. My team is going to go around to the rooms and inspect the devices since we have not been getting reliable data from the teachers doing checks. I was hoping there was some type of inspection form process inside of IncidentIQ we could use and have the data go directly to the record that already exists but I don’t see a way. I am working on an AppSheet app that my techs could use when going around to inspect. I am working on trying to make an API connection at least from IIQ to my AppSheet app but hopefully two-way. We want to make sure that if any devices of the ones staying with kids for the summer need repair that we get that repair done now (if possible). 

wterral- Have you considered using a ticket template and subtask to create an inspection in iiQ? We just set our first one up for our monthly emergency phone line checks and it was very simple to use. 

We need to document inspection details for all of our Chromebooks. That would be a ticket per inspection so a lot of tickets. I know I could automate a lot of it with rules so that would help. 

It would be nice if the Verify Asset window allowed for some custom fields.