Bedford board weighs overhaul of decade-old Chromebook program amid privacy and classroom-control concerns

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…