Every Wake student could get their own computer with the purchase of 85,000 laptops
Every Wake County student could get a laptop computer from the school district by this time next year.
The Wake County school board approved Tuesday a proposal to pay $24 million to Lenovo for 85,000 Chromebooks to give to students. Wake already has around 80,000 Chromebooks so Marlo Gaddis, Wake’s chief technology officer, said the goal is to give all 162,000 students a device by the start of the 2021-22 school year.
“We’re trying to get enough devices to provide enough for one device per child so when we do have instances like this, students have the devices and the resources that they need should there be a snow day, a hurricane,” Gaddis said at a news conference Monday. “Things like that going forward we want to make sure we are always prepared.”
Wake County is North Carolina’s largest school district, but until now hasn’t had enough computers for every student. Due to a lack of devices, many schools encouraged students to bring their own devices to school.
Some school districts had provided computers to all their students before the COVID-19 pandemic. That enabled schools to still hold classes on days when school buildings were closed due to inclement weather.
But the use of remote learning during the pandemic school closures has accelerated efforts to get computers into the hands of students. Some school districts have reported delays getting new laptops because the U.S. government has imposed trade sanctions over allegations of forced labor in China, the News & Observer previously reported.
COVID-19 increases demand for students to get computers
Wake provided 31,000 Chromebooks in the spring for families to use last school year. Gaddis said most students were allowed to keep the devices for use this school year.
Wake purchased 50,000 more Chromebooks in the spring. Gaddis said they have gotten new requests for 46,000 Chromebooks and 14,000 hotspots from families who say they need them now while schools are closed for in-person learning.
“This has accelerated our move to have devices for all of our students,” school board member Christine Kushner said Tuesday. “I appreciate the acceleration of that work and the magnitude of that lift.”
The school district received eight proposals after submitting requests in July for the 85,000 new Chromebooks. The district is buying the 85,000 Lenovo 300e Chromebooks directly from Lenovo.
The $24 million for the Chromebooks comes from the district’s capital improvement program, which voters helped fund when they approved a $548 million school construction bond referendum in 2018. School officials say the money for the new laptops isn’t being paid for from bond money, though.
Wake also used part of that funding in October to pay $16.25 million to purchase 17,000 Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Yoga laptop computers to give to school employees, The News & Observer previously reported.
This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 8:28 AM.
