The new requirement that sophomores earn a Digital Driver’s License” recently caused a digital uproar.

On December 11th, the Sophomore principal Dr. Wayne Foley sent out an email to the entire 10th grade class to inform them about the new Digital Driver’s Licenses, which all 10th graders who were assigned personal laptops will now be required to obtain. The DDL consists of several online courses that cover the nine basic themes for proper technological usage. It will be expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter (January 22nd) in their QSR periods.

As soon as the email was released, a backlash emerged in the form of an email to Dr. Foley from sophomore Alan Bauman, who said “the idea of this DDL is absolutely ridiculous”. He went on further, saying that the DDL treated them like “little children”, and made their lives “more miserable”. After writing the email, Bauman sent it to Dr. Foley. Except he made one mistake.

He hit “Reply All” instead of just “Reply”.

This meant that everyone attached to the original email received his letter, not just Dr. Foley. As embarrassing of a mistake that it was, things only got worse from there.

By Monday, students began treated the emails like an online-chat forum. Peyton Schlott, Liam Callahan, Coal Armstrong, Kayli Hayman, Robert Savory, Shane Krause, Mason Mitchell and John McKillip all added to the chain in protest of the DDL.

Hayman asked students to email her so she could write a petition, saying “I want to make a change”.

As the chain got longer, several other students wrote off-topic and random emails as a joke. Ryan Marques, Jordan Mihalko, and Brock Roundy posted their Twitter handles. Brodie Baxter and Colin Monteith both posted photos. And handfuls of other student just wrote whatever they thought was funny.

The emails got so out of hand that Dr. Foley had to hold an assembly on Tuesday, December 15th, only four days after the initial email, to answer many of the questions that had angered students, like why they have to take them and what their purpose was.

The irony of the whole situation became apparent when he said, “The goal of the DDL’s is to teach the students how to properly and safely use the internet.” He also explained that by hitting “Reply All” and causing a massive email chain, anyone who was attached to the email had to clear their inbox several times that day due to the space it took up.

By Wednesday, students began working toward their DDL’s, and most of the commotion surrounding them had died out.

By Friday, the emails had become a mere footnote in the 2015-16 school year. Yet there’s still a lesson to be learned here.

As Probability and Statistics teacher Mrs. Dana Bowers said, “The DDL’s are meant to teach students how to properly use the internet. They may not like it, but from what they did, they’re only proving that they need the training.”