The Park Ridge CCSD 64 Board of Education on April 17 approved the purchase of Chromebook and iPad devices to support the district's 1:1 digital learning program, voting to buy Chromebook devices from IT Savvy for $652,962.50 and iPad devices from Apple Inc. for $145,800.

District staff told the board the purchase covers a planned refresh cycle: 1,025 Chromebooks for second- and sixth-grade refreshes, plus an additional 500 Chromebooks the district will acquire early and hold to shield the program from projected tariff- and supply-driven price increases. The board approved buying 450 11-inch, 11th-generation iPads for kindergarten classrooms and new protective cases for Chromebooks with an embedded handle to ease student transport.

District staff said vendor and product choices followed a year-long student device evaluation that included staff, family and student surveys, listening sessions at each school and benchmarking with 51 Illinois districts. The administration recommended Lenovo 500e Gen 4 clamshell touchscreen Chromebooks (to replace the district's current convertible Chromebooks with built-in active stylus) and the 11-inch iPad (11th gen). Staff said moving away from built-in active styluses removes replacement-fee burdens and that the district will move second-grade devices to classroom carts instead of sending them home.

Board members asked about risks tied to the procurement plan. One board member urged the administration to review IT Savvy's financials because the vendor proposed holding 500 devices in stock for the district so warranties would not start until next year; the board member noted the district would be prepaying inventory and wanted assurance the vendor could hold the equipment if necessary. Staff said they had worked with IT Savvy for years, that the arrangement reduced exposure to tariff-driven price increases and that district funds were budgeted for the purchase; they said district staff could also store the devices if needed.

Staff explained other operational details the board asked about: the district will retire and either resell or repurpose old iPads (trade-in revenue will offset costs), protective case costs for iPads are budgeted separately (roughly $20'$25 per case), and devices chosen for grades 2'8 will be in hard-shell cases with built-in handles. Second-grade Chromebooks will remain in-classroom carts through the school year and only go home for summer, while kindergarten students will continue to use iPads in classrooms rather than taking them home.

Board members moved and seconded the purchase motion; the board then approved the purchase in roll call vote with board members recorded as voting yes (George Aches/Georgeakis; Milligan; Pearl; Kennedy). The motion language on the meeting record: '2istrict purchase of Chromebook devices from IT Savvy in the amount of $652,962.50 and iPad devices from Apple Inc. for the kindergarten refresh cycle in the amount of $145,800 for the annual refresh cycle of our 1 to 1 digital learning program.'

District staff said next steps include finalizing vendor contracts, phasing devices into classrooms by grade-level refresh cycles, and running professional-development and logistics work to support the transition to the new Chromebook model and updated cases. Staff also said they will monitor supplier risk and could elect to hold purchased inventory in district facilities if vendor solvency or warranty-start timing becomes a concern.