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District forgoes planned Chromebook purchase, will use shared carts and invest in campus fiber upgrades
Summary
IT director told trustees the district will not buy a one‑to‑one Chromebook fleet for elementary students this year, saving about $900,000, and will roll out shared 30‑device carts while maintaining one‑to‑one at secondary schools. E‑Rate‑funded fiber upgrades to multiple campuses were also described.
The Elco County School District will postpone a planned mass Chromebook purchase and switch to a shared‑cart model for elementary grades, district IT director R.J. Santos told trustees.
"We decided last board meeting not to purchase Chromebooks for the upcoming school year. That'll save us about $900,000 that we had budgeted for this next year," Santos said. Instead, the district will deploy shared carts (30 Chromebooks per cart) across K–5 classrooms and keep one‑to‑one devices for secondary students. The devices for elementary carts will be Dell 3100 models; secondary devices are Lenovo models.
Santos also reviewed ongoing and planned E‑Rate category 1 (bringing fiber to campus) and category 2 (internal switches, wireless access points) projects. He said fiber upgrades for multiple campuses were in progress and that federal E‑Rate subsidies will cover a substantial portion of several multi‑hundred‑thousand‑dollar infrastructure projects.
Trustees asked whether E‑Rate matching funds come from capital or general funds; finance staff replied that district transfers make up the local portion and promised to follow up on whether capital funds could be used. Santos said the district has maintenance and repair plans and that current devices are supported by Google management through 2029.
No vote was required; the IT approach was presented as the administration’s operational plan for the coming year.
