The Fox C-6 School District can get more Chromebooks into students’ hands, thanks to a lucky break.
Luke Heitert, Fox’s director of information and technology, said the district ordered 2,450 of the laptop computers after an unknown Hewlett-Packard customer backed out of an order of 20,000 Chromebooks this month.
Heitert said the Chromebooks were stored in a Hewlett-Packard warehouse in Chicago, and the company reached out to Fox to let the district know the computers were available. “This is a great situation to be in for us,” Heitert told Board of Education members at their Nov. 17 meeting. “Being in technology, there has been a little bit of frustration lately because nothing is available.”
At the meeting, board members voted unanimously to spend $706,261.50 to purchase the Chromebooks and Google management software.
Fox used money from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act to pay for the Chromebooks, which the district received on Nov. 19, communication and instructional technology coordinator JP Prezzavento said.
“It is a pretty miraculous thing, because there are none out there,” Heitert said.
Heitert said 1,765 Chromebooks will be distributed to seventh-grade and 10th-grade students, so each student in those grades will have a computer.
He said each of Fox’s 11 elementary schools will get 60 Chromebooks to use in those buildings or to distribute to students who need a computer to take home, and the other 25 units will be used throughout the district as needed.
He said the Chromebooks were delivered to the elementary schools on Nov. 20, and the seventh-grade and 10th-grade students will receive their Chromebooks the week of Dec. 7.
Fox district students will not have in-person classes until Dec. 4 to stem the spread of COVID-19.
The district is waiting to receive an order of 1,700 Chromebooks the district purchased after school board members voted unanimously Aug. 18 to spend $446,913 on them. Those Chromebooks also will be funded with CARES Act money, district officials said.
The Chromebooks ordered in August are expected to arrive in early December, and they will be distributed to sixth-grade students and freshmen, Heitert said.
“We had said with the last order we would cover sixth and ninth grade as a beginning of our 1-to-1 (Chromebook-student ratio),” Heitert said. “We will be able to do far more than that, which is fantastic. In a year, we will be able to tackle sixth, ninth, 10th and seventh and give multiple carts to every elementary school. We are basically going to throw Chromebooks all over the district like we have not seen in a really long time. It is great for the teachers and students.”