I. Preparing Your Device for School Use
A. Insurance

• Insuring your child’s laptop is strongly recommended. Check with your insurance agent to see if your homeowner’s or renter’s policy covers personal electronic devices.

• Alternately, you may be able to purchase additional insurance through the laptop manufacturer.

B. Labeling

• Purchase a luggage tag to attach to the carrying case with your child’s name in it.

• Attach something unique to the carrying case to prevent another student from taking the laptop by mistake. A luggage tag would work great.

• Consider putting a sticky address label in the following places:

• Top of computer

• Inside, under the keyboard

• Both parts of the power cord

• Charging

• When bringing laptops to school, the laptop must be brought in a fully charged condition. Students need to charge them each evening.

• Students may need to carry the power cord with them each day.

C. Screensavers, backgrounds and skins

• Screensavers, backgrounds and skins must not be offensive or violate the FHSD Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

II. School Use
A. Protecting/Storage

• Keep the laptop either locked (i.e. locked in your school locker, home or other secure place) or attended at all times.

• Unsupervised laptops will be confiscated by staff and taken to the administrative office. Disciplinary action may be taken for leaving the laptop in an unsupervised location. Each student is responsible for his/her laptop.

• Avoid use in situations that are conducive to loss or damage. For example, the laptop should never be left in a locker room, on playing fields or in other areas where it could be damaged or stolen.

• Avoid storing laptops in a vehicle other than in a locked trunk. Extreme temperatures may damage the laptop.

• Do not let anyone use the laptop other than your parents or guardians. Loss or damage that occurs when anyone else is using your laptop will be your full responsibility.

• Never share passwords. Never use your password to help someone else logon to the Internet or their computer.

• You should take your laptop home every day.

• Do not loan your laptop to anyone.

B. Sound

• Sound must be muted at all times unless permission is obtained from the teacher for instructional purposes.

• Student ear buds may be used at the discretion of the classroom teacher as well as during non-instructional times throughout the day. Inexpensive student ear buds may be purchased at the Nagel bookstore.

C. Inspection

• Students and parents should be aware that permitted items of technology are subject to search by school officials if the school district has a reasonable suspicion that evidence of a violation of the student code of conduct is present on the technological device.

III. General Care of Your Laptop
A. Transporting/Holding the laptop

• Do not carry the laptop while the screen is open. Close the laptop before moving it. Dropping, jostling, or bumping will cause damage to the hard drive.

• Shut down the laptop before placing it in your backpack.

• Do not place an excessive amount of additional objects (i.e., folders, textbooks) in the backpack with the laptop. Excessive objects can place too much pressure and/or weight on the laptop screen.

• Be cautious about leaving the laptop unattended anywhere that there is a chance it could easily be knocked onto the floor, sat on, or stepped on.

• Always hold the laptop by the bottom, never the screen. Use two hands.

B. Screen/Body of Laptop

• Never twist the screen on its hinges (could crack the screen).

• Do not scratch or push on the screen.

• Never close the lid on a pencil or pen left on the keyboard (could crack the screen).

• Don't slam the lid down (might damage screen or hinges).

• Clean the screen with a lint-free cloth; you can use window cleaner on the cloth.

C. Power Cord

• Be careful when removing the power cord. Yanking it out of the laptop or the electrical outlet from afar will cause damage.

• Do not wrap the cord tightly around itself. Instead, loosely wrap it in a figure eight pattern.
  

D. General Precautions

• Food or drink should not be placed near the laptop while it is in use.
  

E. Routine Laptop Maintenance

• Hard drive

• Run Disk Cleanup and Defragmenter at least monthly.

• Check for disk errors at least monthly. Open "My Computer." Right click on drive C, then select Properties. Click on the Tools tab. Where you see Error Checking, click on "Check now." Select "automatically fix file system errors," and then Start. You may be prompted to restart the machine.

• Set virus protection software to download and install updates automatically.

• Set virus protection software to enable virus realtime protection.

• Perform weekly virus scans.

• Set your computer to automatically download any newly released Windows updates. To do this:

1. Open the Control Panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel)

2. Double-click “System.”

3. Click on the Automatic Updates tab and make your selections. Most people prefer the option “Download updates for me, but let me choose when to install them.”

• Performing these actions on a regular basis will help keep the computer working properly with less freezing, and will help protect your investment. Parents, regular reminders from you will help! Thanks.