'SoWashCo Repairs' Teaches High School Students Valuable Skills

SoWashCo Repairs is a new class that has high school students teaming up with the Department of Technology at South Washington County Schools (SoWashCo Schools). Students work to get Chromebooks in tip-top shape while learning new skills along the way.

South Washington Alternative High School (SWAHS) is the first site that introduced SoWashCo Repairs this spring. The class teaches students how to repair broken Chromebooks, a task that some thought would be difficult to learn.

“This seemed harder in my head, but it wasn’t hard at all once I started doing it,” said Ahmed, a senior at SWAHS.

The students start the class by learning from training modules, then get to practice on old devices before working their way up to repairing devices used by other students throughout the district. They do everything from fixing keyboards to replacing charging ports and fixing screens. These are skills students say they want to build on in the future.

“It's interesting how much you can tell from just looking at the Chromebook,” adds Liam, a senior at SWAHS. “ If you show me a broken screen, I can get close to telling you what happened causing it to break.”

“It's been interesting seeing the backside of this,” explained Ajulo, a senior at SWAHS, “It makes me want to do more with software and coding in the future.” 

Amber Sorenson, a Technology Integration Coordinator at SoWashCo Schools, helped launch the class throughout the district. She says SoWashCo Repairs teaches students so much more than just how to fix a broken device.

“Students are gaining lifelong skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, communication and resourcefulness that we hope they take with them down any road they choose to go,” said Amber.

“The cool thing about this partnership is the broken Chromebooks these students are fixing are the actual devices that students throughout the district use during the school year,” explained Bob Berkowitz, Director of the Department of Technology Services. “If one is broken, the students in this class are able to use their new skills to repair it and get the device back into circulation.” 

To his fellow students, Liam has one piece of advice, “ Treat your Chromebooks with care. If you don’t, it will probably come to me.”

SoWashCo Repairs is expanding and is now offered at East Ridge, Park and Woodbury high schools in addition to SWAHS. So far, 18 students across the district are involved in this program with plans to offer it to more students next school year.

Students that are certified by the SoWashCo Repairs program can apply to work in the Department of Technology this summer repairing broken Chromebooks.