Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Ed Technology Fees topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Superintendent details Chromebook repair fees, says service and asset management drive costs
Summary
Superintendent Jackie Collins explained the authority’s Chromebook fee schedule to trustees, citing repair volumes, third‑party repair costs, a 4.95% MySchoolBucks service fee and that replacement charges are set to cover equipment, licensing and labor rather than generate profit.
At the Oct. 14 meeting the Cape Coral Charter School Authority Governing Board heard a detailed explanation from Superintendent Jackie Collins about Chromebook repair and replacement fees charged to families.
Collins said the authority purchases devices on a multi‑year cycle, piggybacks on a Lee County contract for device pricing, and retains devices longer than the county in some grades. "We have 3 sets of student devices... The charter school system tends to keep these Chromebook devices longer than Lee County does," she told trustees.
The superintendent said the district averages about 200 repairs per year at the middle school and roughly 150 repairs at the high school. The authority uses an outside vendor to perform repairs and provides loaner devices while repairs are completed.
Collins compared Oasis’s fees to Lee County’s published fees and described the district’s online payment process: "On the OASIS fee schedule, the asterisk, we have parents pay through the MySchoolBucks store. There for every exchange on MySchoolBucks, there's a service fee of 4.95%. So, when you do a little math and you factor in the 4.9%, if we're charging for a Chromebook replacement to the parent, 378, 4.95 is going to my school box. So we're not making 4.95, we're making, $301. So we're not even getting cost back." (transcript text)
Collins said many listed replacement fees reflect the vendor’s warranty-level prices and that the authority often absorbs the MySchoolBucks transaction fee to keep charges manageable for families. She also described operational processes: if families contest a fee, the district provides the student’s damage report, photos and any video evidence collected by IT.
Board members asked whether the fee schedule appears in the annual paperwork; Collins said the schedule and prices are included in the beginning‑of‑year parent acknowledgement documents and that the authority will ensure prices are clearly listed on that form if they are not already.
Collins emphasized that the fee covers more than the physical device: asset tagging, enterprise licensing, software enrollment and labor to prepare devices and maintain ClassLinks and other instructional icons for students. She said the authority contracts with the City of Cape Coral IT department for services.
No vote was required; the discussion was informational and intended to give trustees context for complaints posted on social media and questions from families.
