District 203 is starting a new initiative that aims to give students a voice in the technology they use every day.

The Student Technology Advisory Committee, or STAC, is a joint program between Naperville Central and Naperville North high school students, formed by the Naperville 203 IT Infrastructure Team.

In an email sent out to District 203 high school students on Oct. 16, Director of IT Infrastructure Joe Jaruseski offered students the chance to join the committee by filling out an application.

“STAC will provide feedback on current technology use in education,” the email said. “What functions well in classroom technology, what needs work, and what might be new things to consider for future use.”

The committee will help pick the replacement for the current Chromebooks which are at the end of their leasing cycle. Jaruseski hopes that STAC will be able to further help in the selection process for what model would work best.

“As many as 12 different models [will be tested], each needing a student ‘test drive’ and feedback,” Jaruseski said.

Along with selecting a new model, STAC also aims to prevent viruses and harmful malware and provide students with a technology experience that caters toward their education.

“It is very rare for [Chromebooks] to actually become infected with malware like a Windows-based PC,” Jaruseski said.

A follow-up email was sent to North and Central students on Nov. 8, pushing the announcement date for membership back to Nov. 21 instead of the initial date of Nov. 9, due to the large amount of responses the IT Infrastructure team received.

Junior Kent Lullo was one of the students interested in joining STAC.

“I think [the committee] is a good thing,” Lullo said. “I think that student voices need to be heard because they are the ones that are using the technology.”

Lullo is interested to see what new technology will be available to District 203 students as compared to the current technology.

“I think [the current technology] is good given the fact that we do have technology available to us,” Lullo said. “I think with more insight and research, it could definitely be improved.”