Tech questions? Ask Bethlehem’s Student Help Desk!

BETHLEHEM, N.Y. (NEWS10) -Once a year, the Student Help Desk at Bethlehem Central School extends its help to the Bethlehem Town Hall. All sorts of devices are brought in for the interns to take a crack at.

“We just moved here and we had to change all of our phones and our accounts. So we were getting a lot of confusion between our identities and our phones,” said Eileen Clarke after recently moving to the area with her husband, John.

Anyone was welcome to sign up for Friday’s event. It was after an hour of talking with the interns that the Clarkes had their own, separate iCloud accounts and were ready to FaceTime. NEWS10's Anthony Krolikowski and Gavin Williams captured the moment on camera.

“Hi honey,” greeted Eileen. “Haha, how’re you doing?” asked John. “Good.”

A career in information technology is very encouraged at Bethlehem Central School. So much so that the internship was created around 14 years ago to meet the district’s own needs.

“The program started back when we needed additional help and had not enough funding. Student interns go around and actually help repair devices, solve problems all throughout the building,” explained Navaar Johnson, Senior Network and Systems Administrator.

All sorts of devices are brought in for the interns to take a crack at. From phones and tablets to computers and printers. “Technology or any types or devices at all. They can come in with any questions they want and we’ll do our best to help them to the best of our ability,” said Spencer Buttereit, a senior.

The students said they are always happy to help. They’re used to fixing much harder problems with broken Chromebooks. “Problems with their batteries. Maybe a charging port isn’t working. Often, we have people with cracked screens come in and the most difficult thing I would say is dealing with hinge replacements,” described Henry Saunders, a freshman.

Even though the Clarkes miss the days of sending letters, Eileen said that technology is a necessity today.

“You have to stay in the game. You gotta learn technology. You just have to and we appreciate all the help. But you have to learn it.”