Over the summer, District 219’s Technology Department made the decision to remove students’ access to their personal Gmail accounts on school-issued computers. As of Sep. 11, the restriction was lifted, giving students access to their personal Gmail accounts on Chromebooks back.
Chief of Technology Officer Phil Hintz made the decision to remove access to personal emails at the end of last school year in hopes of improving student safety on school computers.
“We’re responsible for protecting [school computers] and protecting [students] in the process. Having a second email address logged into [school computers] takes the chance of us not being able to protect [students] with Gaggle… We realized that that was turned on for you at one point in time… and when we discovered that, we turned it off,” Hintz said.
The district uses the program Gaggle to scan all documents on school computers to notify administration of any possible dangers posed to students. According to Hintz, Gaggle was not able to scan personal Gmail accounts and was originally seen as a security risk. The use of personal Gmail accounts on school computers has been reviewed and is no longer viewed as a risk.
When the restriction was put in place, some technicians at the West technology center were not informed. Computer technician Areian Zarrieneh only learned about the new email restriction once students who were unable to access their personal emails began bringing their devices to the technology help desk.
“I didn’t know about it, so when kids started coming in I thought it was just a glitch, but as more kids came in I was told about [the new restriction],” Zarrieneh said.
According to College and Career Counselor Daniel Gin, seniors are told to use their personal emails to apply for colleges and careers after a firewall was set up on school emails five years ago to prevent spam.
Senior Orli Eisenberg was frustrated by the restriction as it has disrupted her college application process.
“I don’t have a separate computer at home; my parents have computers but they use it for work. This summer I was working on my Common Application and other things that were on my computer, and I wasn’t able to sign in or join my Zoom meetings because I couldn’t have access to my personal account,” Eisenberg said.
Senior Salwa Mohiuddin was also impacted by the new restriction during the summer as she tried to apply for jobs using her school computer.
“For as long as I’ve had my Chromebook, I’ve always used my personal account. During the summer, I tried to log into things that used my personal account because I was doing my job applications and saw that you can’t use your personal email,” Mohiuddin said.
Mohiuddin feels that the restriction limits students who do not have personal computers and depend on their chromebooks to get work done outside of school.
“If you have students who don’t have access to other devices at home, they need it for sorts of things like job applications or filling out scholarships. Sometimes those [websites] aren’t approved by the district, but you still need to be able to access those,” Mohiuddin said.
