Marin school officials who rushed to give students Chromebooks for remote learning during the pandemic are now keeping an eye on how long those laptops will last.

With a software expiration date baked into each model, older versions of the inexpensive computers were set to lapse three to six years after their release. Despite having fully functioning hardware, an expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use.

“COVID brought many challenges to our schools, but it also allowed us to address an equity issue and bridge a digital divide by getting devices like Chromebooks into the hands of all our students, dramatically impacting student learning,” said Carmen Diaz Ghysels, superintendent of San Rafael City Schools.

The San Rafael district purchased 2,500 extra Chromebooks throughout 2020 to add to the ones already on hand, Ghysels said. The newer ones have “auto update expirations” on their software programs set for 2028, she said. The older ones that were already in stock have since been recycled, she said.

Similarly, Tim Rocco, instructional technology director at Novato Unified School District, said the district has a rolling update program in place for all its student laptops.

“Currently, NUSD replaces about 25% of our Chromebook fleet each year to maximize their lifespan,” Rocco said. The district’s tech team also uses damaged Chromebooks for repair parts, he said.

“NUSD has been aware of Google’s policy of supporting the software on Chromebooks for five years,” Rocco said.

This year, he said, the district purchased approximately 1,700 Chromebooks that qualify for the newly expanded service life — meaning their software will not expire until 2030.

In general, Marin schools “utilized the pandemic aid funds to fill gaps in their districts’ 1:1 laptop programs by purchasing Chromebooks,” Kate Lane, deputy superintendent in the Marin County Office of Education, said in an email.

Now that they have hundreds of those devices on hand, “Marin districts take a strategic approach to aging out laptops so the maximum lifespan of the device can be utilized from initial deployment,” Lane added.

Marin schools are not alone in their running inventory of the Google laptops. Chromebook sales worldwide soared after the start of the pandemic in 2020. More affordable than traditional laptops, the devices were seen as a way to connect students to their classes without breaking the bank — and across the country, school districts ordered them in droves.

By the end of 2020, the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) reported that global Chromebook sales were nearly 300% higher than a year earlier.

By March 2021, 90% of America’s school districts said they were providing some sort of digital learning device for every middle and high school student, according to EdWeek Research Center. Half of all districts surveyed said they used Chromebooks for all their schools.

But three years later, thousands of those laptops have already been rendered useless. This summer, another 13 Chromebook models will hit their death dates. Next summer, 51 will follow suit.

A Google spokesperson said the death dates have an important purpose: Chromebook laptops receive regular software updates — including for security — and older devices often cannot support the upgrades.

“These updates depend on many device-specific non-Google hardware and software providers that work with Google to provide the highest level of security and stability support,” said Peter Du, communications manager for ChromeOS. “For this reason, older Chrome devices cannot receive updates indefinitely to enable new OS and browser features.”

In the East Bay, Oakland Unified School District estimates 40,000 of its Chromebooks will expire over the next five years.

“Seeing the boxes of e-waste just doesn’t feel good,” said 17-year-old Danna Avila, an intern in the district’s tech repair program.

In southern California, the Torrance Unified School District will retire more than 20,000 Chromebooks. Another district in the region, Capistrano Unified, has had to budget $4.2 million to buy new Chromebooks and pay employees to repair them next school year.

“We are indeed concerned about the expiration date of these devices,” said Maria Garcia, spokesperson for the San Bernardino City Unified School District.

Google has made some adjustments. It began guaranteeing an eight-year shelf life for its Chromebooks in 2020. The devices the Oakland district bought last year, for example, have a 2029 expiration date. The Piedmont Unified School District has also purchased newer models with an eight-year life cycle.

But the lifespan of older models, the ones schools and education nonprofits scrambled to buy for distance learning in the early months of the pandemic, hasn’t changed.

Sander Kushen, a consumer advocate at CALPIRG, said expiration dates mean the clock starts running when the laptop is made, not when it is purchased. And because of that, any laptop model minted before 2020 is on a downward trajectory.

Those using refurbished Chromebooks — or those who bought an older model, even if it’s fresh off the shelf — will see their devices’ lifespans dwindle even faster, often without the user realizing it.

“School districts are dealing with enough in their budgets. They shouldn’t have to throw away laptops that are in perfectly good condition,” said Kushen. “We expect expiration dates for milk, but not for laptops.”

Doubling the life of the devices sold across California in 2020 alone could save the state’s schools $225 million, according to CALPIRG, and nationwide, that number would rise to $1.8 billion.

Although districts can’t fix the expiration date, many work hard to get their money’s worth out of their Chromebooks. This year, the Oakland students have repaired more than 1,300 damaged laptops.

Last year, that number was close to 4,000. But even so, they’re facing an upward climb. In a recent analysis, CALPIRG found that Chromebooks are harder to repair than other laptops, mostly due to a lack of spare, affordable and compatible parts, and that one-third of replaceable keyboard options cost around $90 — almost half the $200 cost of a laptop.

“Currently, schools need to purchase parts from third parties or scavenge from broken machines. This scarcity can contribute to the high price for parts, making repair uneconomical,” CALPIRG said in a recent report.

Tired of seeing so much go to waste, some have tried to find other solutions. The San Ramon Valley Unified School District collects and replaces laptops every five years, using the older models for administrative tasks until they need to be recycled, said spokesperson Ilana Israel Samuels.

At the Piedmont district, Superintendent Jennifer Hawn said the district uses older models as loaners during repairs, or shifts them to programs that only require light technology use. The district also harvests parts from older models in partnership with parent clubs before selling the unusable laptops as e-waste.

The Southern California News Group contributed to this report.