The Eastern Camden County Regional School District Board of Education has a decision to make in the coming months: Should it purchase tablets for every student at Eastern Regional High School next year or even just a majority of them?
Those two options were presented by district technology supervisor Fred Harris at the most recent BOE meeting after the technology committee was tasked with coming up with future plans and directions regarding technology.
“The recommendation that was made at the last district technology meeting was to have a one-to-one initiative for the upcoming school year,” Harris said.
As such, Harris presented the board with two scenarios in which all or a majority of students would receive their own, individual iPad for schoolwork.
The first scenario Harris presented is one in which the district outfits every student in grades nine through 12 with an iPad Air 2 64GB. Such a purchase would include more than 1,567 iPads, 1,567 iPad cases, 1,000 keyboards, an Applecare warranty plan and additional software for a total price of nearly $1.3 million.
The 1,567 iPads would be added to the more than 560 iPads the school already purchased for this year’s new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers exam, and would result in every student ending up with their own iPad.
The 1,000 keyboards purchased in Harris’ first scenario would be added to the 560 keyboards purchased last year for the PARCC testing, which requires a keyboard, and make it so all future ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade students required to take PARCC could do so at the same time.
For this year’s inaugural PARCC testing, students will share the current 560 iPads and be tested at different times depending on their grade level.
When not taking PARCC exams, the students would have the iPads for use in their various classes and work at home, as opposed to the current iPads that are shared between classes and kept in school.
However, Harris said he was uncomfortable going before the board and asking it to budget for an additional $1.3 million, and as such he presented a second scenario in which only ninth-, 10th- and 11th-grade classes would receive iPads.
In that second scenario, 1,065 iPads and cases would be purchased, along with everything else in his first scenario, for a lower price of $885,000.
Harris said the first priority is looking out for the PARCC testing, meaning if the price had to be lowered, then grades nine, 10 and 11 are the ones who need the iPads most.
“We would like to provide an opportunity, that when we do provide PARCC testing, that we could do all the testing at one time,” Harris said.
As for the total prices in both scenarios, Harris said the estimates are already based on receiving a 3 percent discount as the district did with the purchase of iPads last year, and while Apple said the total price won’t go any higher, Harris said it won’t be much lower either.
If the district decides to pursue the one-to-one initiative, and the bulk of the iPads are purchased, Harris said the board could then budget every year for one class load of iPads, as the devices are expected to last about four years — the typical length of a student’s high school career.
Other questions to be discussed at a future technology committee meeting include whether to pursue the Applecare warranty, as well as what to do with an iPad once its four years with a student are up.
Of the need for every student to have an iPad to begin with, Harris said the iPad just isn’t a device made to be shared among individuals.
“It’s really a device that’s meant to be used by one individual…when you have multiple people using the same device like we’re using right now, it causes a lot of workarounds that we have to do,” Harris said.
