Long Beach has recently fallen victim to a national trend of kids shorting out their school laptops by jamming pins, paperclips and other items into charging ports, according to officials at the Long Beach Unified School District.
The trend, known as the “Chromebook challenge,” has been spreading on TikTok where young people have been posting videos of themselves causing smoke – and sometimes flames — to pour out of their laptops in the classroom.
“Today, one student was arrested for arson following such an incident,” the Long Beach Unified School District said in an unsigned email to parents on Thursday. “Recent cases have triggered fire alarms and led to classroom evacuations, putting our school communities at risk and disrupting learning.”
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It’s not clear exactly how frequently this is happening locally. The district said it has happened at “a few of our schools.” They declined to say at which school the student was arrested Thursday…