With an eye to the future, the De Soto Board of Education agreed to buy 528 Chromebooks over the past two months.
The district also recently bought a used school bus.
At its Dec. 17 meeting, the school board voted unanimously to accept the best of 13 bids for touch-screen laptop computers for teachers to use for virtual instruction.
“We had a grant of $30,000, so the bid was to get the most we could for that money,” Superintendent Josh Isaacson said.
The board had accepted the Innovative Technology Education Fund grant at its Nov. 19 meeting.
The winning bidder, Archangel of Miami, Fla., will be paid $29,998.75 for 103 devices, management licensing and warranties.
“These devices are in stock and ready to ship, where most vendors are looking at a delivery date of a few to several months out,” Isaacson said.
Delivery date also was a factor at the Nov. 19 meeting, when the board voted to spend $119,408 to purchase 425 Chromebooks for seventh- through 12th-graders for the 2021-2022 school year.
Archangel was not the lowest of the 10 bidders, Isaacson said, but was recommended because it would guarantee delivery in June, while the lowest bidder could not.
Isaacson noted the high demand during the pandemic for computers and other equipment.
He also said the district has experience with Archangel, which supplied 585 Chromebooks for prekindergartners through second-graders last June, well in advance of the start of school this fall.
The new devices, which will replace older models that are becoming obsolete, will come with a three-year accidental damage warranty, and the cases will be improved over the current models used by the secondary students, with rubber bumpers, reinforced ports and hinges and mechanically anchored and water-resistant keys, Isaacson said.
“We have had issues with the cases in the past, so this will be a nice benefit,” he said, adding that the cases will come with a five-year warranty.
The money to pay for the new Chromebooks will be taken from the general operating budget.
“We had hoped to use COVID (CARES Act) funding, but because we will not have them until June and the money has to be used by Dec. 30, we are not able to do so,” Isaacson said.
Board approves bus
purchase
Isaacson told the district’s Board of Education on Nov. 19 that not as many students are riding school buses this year.
“Due to COVID-19, our ridership is down,” he said, noting that students opting for all-virtual instruction, as well as those whose parents are transporting their children to and from school plays a big part. “We’re seeing 685 fewer students on the buses each day so far this year.”
That has made social distancing on buses easier to achieve, he said, so only one route has been cut. The district currently is running 49 routes, either morning or afternoon.
To further spread out students, the board voted unanimously Nov. 19 to buy a used, 29-passenger bus for $42,500 to add to its 41-bus fleet; nine are kept as reserves.
The board selected a bid from Central States Bus Sales in Fenton for a 2017 Chevrolet Micro Bird bus.
Even though a competing bidder offered two buses for less money, transportation officials recommended the Central States bus because it has fewer miles, as well as front and rear air conditioning, and it is available soon.
A transportation supplement grant from the Missouri Department of Education will pay for the bus because it is being used to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.