On Friday, March 16, eighth-grader AviShai Dayanim’s computer overheated towards the end of the day and caused a schoolwide recall of every middle school students’ Lenovo Yoga laptop to prevent a similar incident from occurring.

After Dayanim’s computer began to overheat and release an odd smell, all middle school students were told to return their Lenovo laptops and that any online homework would be canceled for the weekend. Any planned assessments for next Monday, March 19 were also pushed off to a later date.

An email sent out to middle school parents, teachers and students by Middle School Principal Dr. Eliana Lipsky informed parents about the incident and asked students not to charge or use their computers over the weekend as a precautionary method. Additionally, Lipsky requested that all students immediately return their laptop computers to the Levitt Media Center on Monday morning if they had not already done so on Friday.

The email also stated that the administration would be opening every student’s locker to retrieve all of the computers on Friday to ensure their immediate inspection.

Dayanim said that he was in his science classroom when the incident took place and that the smell from his computer filled the room. He also noted that it took some time to figure out where the stench originated from after his class had taken a quiz.

“So I touched the screen; it was very hot and then my computer just started melting. At that point in time, Ms. Ly, who was my teacher, took it outside. I rushed [and] got Ms. Platt and Mr. Meyers. They came, took the computer, brought it to tech and then they opened the computer and took out the battery which was on fire,” Dayanim said.

Dayanim added that the school had not spoken to him individually and that he was already given a new computer.

Ginger Thornton, CESJDS Director of Instructional Technology, said that the incident on Friday was caused by a faulty battery in Dayanim’s laptop that caused it to overheat and melt in the classroom. Thornton also said that the school had received twenty replacement batteries earlier this year that came from the school’s main supplier, some of which were placed in student laptops such as Dayanim’s, and she believes that these new batteries were the source of the problem.

“So, Friday afternoon we opened up every middle school computer, checked to see if it had one of the bad batch of batteries — they are easily identifiable with the absence of a tag that’s on the others — and so we pulled out the ones that we had found, replaced them and gave all the computers back to students this morning,” Thornton said.

Thornton also noted that the school has already contacted their battery supplier and warranty company to notify them of last week’s incident and make them aware of the issue.

Many students heard about the computer issue through a loudspeaker announcement on Friday but eighth-grader Ariella Ball said that she heard the news from a friend on Friday and that news regarding the issue spread rapidly throughout her grade following the incident.

“I think that the school addressed the problem correctly because what if all the computers had the same virus or the same problem that AviShai’s computer did?” Ball said.

On Monday morning, students were handed back their laptops after their inspection and went about their day in normal fashion.