Arlington Heights Elementary School District 25 plans to spend more than $600,000 this year to buy laptop computers for every middle school student.
The board for Arlington Heights Elementary School District 25 last week discussed a plan to purchase 2,000 Chromebooks at $288 each for students at South and Thomas middle schools as the district progresses toward a 1:1 technology plan. The plan involves one technology device for each student.
District 25 has a variety of devices for almost every student, but there is a need to standardize to consistent devices that would be available for each student and for all students simultaneously. Arlington Heights School District 25 enrollment is about 5,280 students. The Chromebooks are expected to be delivered to students later in the 2016-2017 school year after extra money is approved for the technology budget on September 22, 2016. The first day of the 2016-2017 school year is August 29, 2016.
An education trend toward personalized learning and online testing requires students have daily access to standardized technology devices.
Every sixth- through eighth-grade student would be required to check out a Chromebook every morning and use it during the school day. Initially students would not take the Chromebooks home, but future use may include permission to take home the devices. The recommendation of Chromebook cases for each laptop and one charging station per classroom, and additional staff hours for inventory and deployment bring the total cost forecast to $627,500.
School districts nationwide are moving toward a 1:1 technology plan.
Township Districts 214 and 211 have 1:1 programs using Apple iPads, while Maine Township High School District 207 uses Chromebooks.
Device checkout brings other possible costs and considerations so that all students actually have Internet access. Maine Township High School District 207 in the summer of 2015 provided the Sprint ConnectEd program in partnership with the U.S. Department of Education for wireless Internet through hotspots purchased to enable mobile data connections. As part of this grant, Sprint provided 3Gb per month of filtered Internet connections per device for 4 years at value of $1680 per hotspot.
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