At its meeting on Monday, the East Aurora School District 131 board approved the district’s purchase of around 2,500 Chromebooks for students, for a total cost of a little more than $1.1 million.
Monday’s approval was for a purchase that the district makes annually, according to the district’s Assistant Superintendent of Operations Andrew Allen.
At the school board’s Building and Grounds Committee meeting earlier that evening, Allen explained that new laptops are given to second-, sixth- and ninth-graders — meaning students in the district use the same laptop for three to four years before getting a new one. Seniors can keep their Chromebook after graduation.
At the Building and Grounds meeting, the district indicated that pricing has been a concern for the Chromebook purchases for students.
The purchase approved Monday of 2,500 Lenovo Chromebooks, including three-year protection plans, from North Star K12, Inc. came in at $1,152,500.
Allen said at the meeting that prices for this type of technology have “gone up exponentially.”
He said the district has discussed ways of making these annual purchases “more sustainable over a longer period of time,” like having cabinets or racks at school to hold the computers for elementary students so the devices would last longer and incur less damage.
District 131 Superintendent Bob Halverson noted that such a plan could still enable the district to send the laptops home with students as needed, but could “extend the life cycle on them a little bit.”
Halverson also noted that the district has had to go from a touch screen to a non-touch screen option because of costs.
The purchase was ultimately approved later that evening by the district’s school board.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
