Audit finds inconsistent governance of 1:1 student devices; committee adopts recommendations

An internal audit presented June 25 found inconsistent governance and control gaps in Savannah‑Chatham County's 1:1 student device program, and the Audit Committee adopted the report and its recommendations by voice vote.

The audit presenter, Mr. Connory, told the committee the review covered iPads, Chromebooks and laptops across 28 schools and examined compliance, data reliability, program controls and operational effectiveness. He said the district's operational foundation is in place but that controls need strengthening to support consistent district‑wide oversight.

The audit listed four primary observations. First, the district lacks a formally documented governance and performance‑monitoring framework for the 1:1 program, producing variable school‑level practices; site visits found differing take‑home policies across schools. Second, testing of device assignment records found 49 of 135 sampled student records (36%) had no evidence of a completed device loan form and 23 forms were signed after devices were issued, indicating inconsistent accountability documentation. Third, inventory and reconciliation controls were incomplete: a review of purchase and resource manager records showed 802 devices from a large purchase were not initially found in the inventory record though management subsequently accounted for vendor storage. Fourth, life‑cycle planning needs updating: of 35,296 Chromebooks reviewed, 10,176 (28.8%) were more than five years old, and the audit recommended a detailed multi‑year replacement plan.

The report also flagged the district's content‑filtering platform, noting opportunities to strengthen documented review and approval controls for configuration changes and to establish a regular cadence for blocked‑content reporting. Mr. Connory said the district can detect when students attempt to access blocked sites but has not yet configured notifications; management intends to deploy a new content‑filtering system with alerting capabilities.

Committee member Miss Campbell pressed the presenter on the filtering pitfalls and whether attempted accesses could trigger administrator or parent alerts, saying, “As a parent, I think you can't unsee something that you've seen now,” and asked that notifications be prioritized. The auditor and management replied the data to detect attempts exists and that the upcoming system will offer notification features.

Management representatives accepted the audit recommendations and told the committee they will work on a district‑wide framework and a reset of the 1:1 deployment for the next school year to provide consistent guidance on when students should have assigned devices versus classroom sets. Mr. Connory noted the audit did not review instructional content or the effectiveness of technology‑based instruction.

The committee voted to adopt the audit of 1:1 technology access. The adoption was by voice vote; no roll‑call tally was recorded in the meeting transcript. The audit report includes management's responses and action plans; the committee asked staff to return with a timeline for implementing the recommended governance framework and reconciliation controls.

What happens next: Management will draft a district‑wide 1:1 governance framework, strengthen reconciliation and loan‑form controls, and refine life‑cycle replacement planning; the committee will monitor implementation in future meetings.