School Board OK’s 100K for one-to-one initiative
The Anderson County School District’s goal to provide every student in the district a Google Chromebook is a step away from becoming reality.
Last week, during the Anderson County School System Board of Education’s monthly meeting on Sept. 14, school board members voted unanimously to appropriate $100,000 to complete the second phase of the three phase district-wide technology project called One-to-One.
The goal of the school system’s One-to-One technology initiative is to equip every student in the school with a Chromebook.
School officials reported at the school board meeting last Thursday that students in the middle and high schools have already been provided Chromebooks, with the middle school students receiving the computers first in the first phase of the project last school year and students in grades 9 through 11 getting computers last month.
School officials say the third phase is providing students in the elementary schools with Chromebooks.
A start date on when the third phase of the project will begin is not currently set, but it is expected to begin in the coming months, officials reported.
During the project’s first phase, which took about six months to complete, the school system’s technology department re-wired and upgraded connectivity and bandwidth settings in the middle schools.
The next task was putting Chromebooks in the high schools, but school officials in March this year reported they were not certain if the school system had enough funds at that time to provide students in all high school grades with the computers.
Although the goal was to provide students in all grades with their own computers, the plan at that time was to initially give Chromebooks to students in grades 9-11, and wait until they received more money to cover grade 12 students.
The total cost to fund the One-to-One project in the district’s high schools was $806,400, according to the school board’s budget report, and includes funding students in every grade, some 2,400 students.
In the high schools, students have access to the Chromebooks 24/7 and are permitted to use the devices outside school.
The appropriation for $100,000 is going towards finishing up the One-to-One initiative in the high schools. Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have already been provided their Chromebooks, so the $100k will fund the Chromebooks for the high school seniors, said Anderson County Schools Financial Director Jim Woodward, on Thursday at the school board meeting.
“We’re going to try to get a jump start this spring on getting One-to-One in the elementary schools to finish the third phase,” Woodward said.
Woodward stated the schools already have some money set aside in their budget to fund the elementary phase of the Chromebook project.
“We’re well on our way to having our elementary schools equipped with one-to-one next year. That is truly amazing,” stated Anderson County Director of Schools Dr. Tim Parrott to school board members Thursday after they passed the appropriation to complete One-to-One in the high schools.