Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Technology Refresh topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Dunlap IT director proposes Chromebook refresh; district told upgrade would cost about $575,250
Summary
IT Director Mr. Efridge presented a proposal to refresh Chromebook hardware, recommending the Asus Chromebook Flip for middle-school replacement this year; he said the estimated total in the packet is $575,250 and funding would come from the Education Fund.
Dunlap Community Unit School District 323 IT Director Mr. Efridge told the board on March 26 that the district is seeing increased hardware failures and proposed a Chromebook refresh focused on middle-school devices.
Efridge said the district is considering the Asus Chromebook Flip, which he described as having a ruggedized glass screen and a longer estimated service life. The replacement plan presented in the board packet called for replacing sixth through eighth-grade devices this year, with high-school devices scheduled for replacement next year and other grades at a later date. He said middle-school devices cause most of the damage in typical districts and recommended warranty coverage to limit out-of-warranty repair costs.
In the presentation Efridge said a failure to replace this year could result in an approximately $50,000 increase in out-of-warranty replacement costs. The figure included in the packet and read aloud during the meeting for the proposed purchase was $575,250 total (the presenter described this as above earlier estimates). Efridge said a four-year warranty option was quoted and that a component of the per-device pricing was $92 for a four-year warranty in the vendor quote. He also told the board that vendor pricing had been subject to recent tariff uncertainty but that the tariffs under discussion were currently paused or exempted.
Board members asked whether the purchase would come from the Education Fund; Efridge replied that it would. He also said he had been in contact with vendors to confirm current pricing and that had briefly been a period when prices might have risen by up to 40 percent. The packet and presentation included an upgrade schedule showing prior replacements (kindergarten through grade 3 were replaced in 2022'23) and the proposed cycle for middle and high school.
No formal vote on the Chromebook refresh was recorded during the information segment; the presentation was listed in the board packet for future action. The district administrator noted funding and warranty trade-offs during the discussion and said staff would answer specific purchasing questions as needed.
