District IT director outlines 1-to-1 device program, hotspots, software controls and smart‑board review

Sam Quants, Salt Lake City School District information systems director, briefed the board on technology programs the district has been building since the 1-to-1 initiative began in 2022.

Quants said the district now supports roughly 23,525 student laptops and just under 19,000 enrolled students, giving the district broad device coverage. The device program is built on a five-year replacement cycle and a planning model that purchases an extra 10% of devices for each school to cover growth and losses. Quants told the board the district keeps about a 10% buffer so schools are not left short when students enroll midyear or devices break.

On funding and recent purchases, Quants said the district spent about $2.05 million on student devices in the most recent order, above an anticipated $1.97 million because of higher component costs and an intentional memory upgrade for some machines to support Adobe suite software used in CTE programs. Teacher devices are on a separate replacement cycle; recent teacher-device purchases were paid from grant or capital outlay lines and were presented on the consent agenda.

Quants described inventory and loss figures: district records show roughly 436 devices marked lost (in warranty window) and 345 marked damaged; he said inventory tracking improved dramatically since the peak device dispersal during the COVID period when thousands of devices were temporarily unaccounted for.

On home connectivity, Quants reviewed the district's private CBRS/LTE pilot in the Glendale area and told the board engineers found the signal did not reliably penetrate residences; the district has paused that pilot rather than invest in boosters and additional spectrum. The district has reduced its deployed pool of cellular hotspots from a maximum inventory of 1,500 during COVID to about 200 available now, and administrators said demand has fallen.

Quants also outlined the district's software approval process. The district now maintains 407 approved pieces of software; that catalog is controlled in part by Utah law on student privacy and data protection. Applications that collect student data must meet contractual privacy requirements and be rostered through the district's single sign-on platform (Clever). Quants said 63 requests for software were denied for privacy or technical-integration reasons; some were duplicates.

The director previewed a forthcoming rollout of classroom management software funded by a digital teaching and learning grant. He said the inventory portion of the tool is being deployed immediately and classroom management features will roll out in the coming weeks.

Quants told the board he is working with teaching-and-learning staff and principals to determine whether the district should continue buying higher-cost interactive "smart boards" or move to alternative projection and interactive options. He said many smart boards in district schools are more than 10 years old and that teacher use varies: "We've estimated that only about 30% of our teachers actually use their full capability," he said. The district will hold demonstrations and open houses so principals and teachers can test replacement options before the district commits to a large capital outlay.

Board members asked for follow-up data on low-usage schools and whether fee/repair concerns reduce classroom device use; Quants said he would produce drill-downs on per-school application usage and work with schools that say they limit device take-home out of concern for student charges.