Chromebooks and student privacy topped the Bedford School District agenda Tuesday as technology staff urged the school board to re-evaluate a decade-old program that lets families purchase and supply laptops for students in grades 7–12.

The technology director, Larry Baker, and digital learning staff outlined operational headaches tied to personal devices — from students logging into personal accounts to access unfiltered content to unpredictable insurance and device-management costs — and asked the board to treat the presentation as background ahead of budget season.

The discussion matters because teachers say unrestricted personal accounts are reducing lesson options and increasing classroom distractions. "If the district owns the device, students cannot log in to anything except for what we let them," said Craig Scheel, a district technology staff member. "If they bring their own device, they can log in to both. And the problem is if I'm supposed to be doing my work in Bedford but it's my machine and I log in to my personal Gmail account, I now have much more access to many more things than the student next to me who has a district-issued device."

Baker and colleagues described three broad options: keep the parent-purchase model but lock devices to the Bedford domain during the school year; phase out the parent-purchase program and have Bedford supply and manage all devices; or eliminate the parent-purchase option quickly and move to exclusively district-owned Chromebooks. All options carry costs and operational tradeoffs; staff cautioned the board that phasing to district ownership would increase the tech budget and require multi-year planning.

District figures presented during the meeting illustrated the scope of the current program: staff said 213 Chromebooks were sold through the district for grades 7–12 (out of roughly 2,100 students in the grades referenced), and the tech team provided 272 loaner devices over the past year for reasons ranging from breakage to family inability to purchase a device. The district's managed price for a device this year is $413 (quoted by staff as the full cost without license subsidies), and the district pays about $31 each time a new device is added to its management system. Staff also said Google licensing and account-management rules prevent reclaiming licenses once a device has been used on the district system.

Filtering and generative AI were a key concern. Staff noted recent changes to Google/YouTube account access and said students who sign out of a school-managed account can log into personal accounts and bypass school filters, reaching content and AI tools teachers may not want students to access during class. "Every time we find some way that they're gaining access that they're not supposed to, we patch it and close it," said Donna Dennis, the district digital learning specialist. "Then a week or two goes by, somebody saw some TikTok about, 'here's how to get around this'... and then that spreads like wildfire around the students."

Board members raised equity, logistics and timing issues: bringing the change before incoming seventh-grade families, the number of additional loaners Bedford would need, the summer staffing available to manage a new rollout, and the budget implications of switching to district-owned devices. Board members and staff discussed possible mitigations — a phased approach, a modest user fee to encourage stewardship, or an opt-in/opt-out lockdown — but did not vote on a policy change at the meeting.

Instead, technology staff will produce numbers and a draft plan for the board. Superintendent Mike Fournier said he and Baker would keep the board updated through regular Friday communications and asked the board to plan to consider any proposed change at the board's July meeting; "I would like the board to ratify that change in July at our July meeting," he said. The board did not adopt a formal motion during the session, but members agreed further analysis and a concrete proposal are needed during the budget season.

The discussion also noted pending state legislation. Staff referenced "SB 206," a state bill under consideration that focuses on personal-device restrictions for cell phones and could be interpreted more broadly; tech staff said the bill's final language could affect local options and timelines. "There are unintended consequences to some of these bills if the language is not right," Fournier said, after reporting he had contacted state officials for clarification.

Staff recommended at minimum that devices used for student learning be locked to the Bedford domain for the coming school year and return to the board in July with cost scenarios for locking, phasing out parent purchases, and full district ownership. Board members asked staff to provide a breakdown of the number of families who currently buy devices, loaner inventories, projected loaner demand if parent-purchase devices are restricted, and estimated budget impacts of a phase-out or buyback.

The board signaled urgency but also concern about timeline and budget. One member said the district should "go slow to go fast" and bring precise cost estimates before making a final decision.

Speakers quoted or paraphrased here appeared in the meeting record: Larry Baker (director of technology), Craig Scheel (district technology staff), Donna Dennis (digital learning specialist), Superintendent Mike Fournier and several board members.

Ending — Next steps: staff will prepare a written proposal with estimates and options for the July board meeting and provide interim updates to the board; no formal policy changes were adopted at this session.