LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — Lake County Public Schools began a Chromebook amnesty program on Wednesday, and so far the district has received only nine broken laptops.

Students who were issued a computer for virtual learning — and broke it — don't have to worry about paying for it if they return it by Monday, September 14.

The program is designed to ensure students have working computers and keep track of the almost 40,000 Chromebooks distributed to students for virtual learning when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold starting last spring.

“Some of our students that chose to go into distance-learning mode we have not seen since spring break,” Duane Weeks, executive director of technology for Lake County Public Schools, said. “I think it was a good case for use for everybody to shake under the bed, make sure if they hadn't been using another device, find that device, get them in.”

The Lake Schools Information Technology Department has seen a variety of problems with returned computers — from cracked screens to bug infestations.

“It’s when they opened up that the roaches scurried out,” Weeks said.

The No. 1 problem was screen damage, though, and Weeks blamed the cracked screens on a simple pencil.

“Administrators say they [students] forget they have them [pencils] inside," Weeks said. "They close their laptops, and when they open them back up, the screen is cracked,” Weeks said.

Weeks said the technology program has gone well overall, though. Student log-in rates are high, which means students are using the new technology. The district is shy of the total Chromebooks it needs by about 5,000, with new shipments coming in every day.

“My guess is that this district will be one-to-one [one computer per student who needs it] in two weeks at the latest,” Weeks said.