School switches from iPads to Chromebooks

McCOOK, Neb. — The days of students logging into unacceptable apps on school-issued laptops are coming to an end, starting next year.

The McCook School Board voted unanimously Monday night at the regular meeting to purchase 550 Chromebooks for students at McCook High School, for $164,840.50. They will replace the current iPads currently at use for the past four years at the high school.

Chromebooks come with filters on the device to block gaming or social media sites, instead of the filter being on the Wifi system used at the school.

It became a weekly occurrence of removing Snapchat and Facebook apps from students’ iPads, McCook Senior principal Jeff Gross told the McCook School Board Monday night. Parents were also complaining about students visiting gaming websites once the iPad left school grounds, he said. He and Tina Williams, McCook Schools technology director, told the board about the different features of the Chromebooks and why they recommended using it instead of continuing the use of iPads, for high school students.

The school board first purchased iPads for all MHS students in 2014, the first time all students were issued personal laptops for school use. Superintendent Grant Norgaard said that at the time the iPads were first purchased, they contained all the capabilities the school needed and the Chromebooks did not. Since then, Chromebooks have revamped their system, adding more capacity and features.

Gross said he and Williams used a number of methods in their research concerning the Chromebook, before deciding that it was the best fit for students and the school. This included talking to administrators at other schools who switched from iPads to Chrome, having students and teachers test-drive three different models of Chromebooks for a few days, and conducting a survey among students and teachers for their preference, with 80 percent preferring Chrome.

The limitations of the iPads cited by Gross and Williams included lack of a keyboard, limited ability to access textbook apps and the lack of control of the device once it left school grounds.

In addition to a keyboard, the Chromebooks will also have a touchscreen, to annotate directly on the screen favored by math and science students, an outward facing camera, that science students use to tape labs, and having an update policy until November 2023.

In response to a question by board member Loretta Hauxwell, Gross said no protective carrying cases would be purchased with the Chromebooks, as in talks with administrators in Cozad, very few students actually used it. Instead, students kept them in their backpacks. The cost of buying a carrying case would be an additional $20,000 to $30,000, Gross said. Williams added that other measures will be contained in the “educational” model Chromebooks they will order, including sturdier plastic and “gorilla glass.”

Funds for this purchase will come from the depreciation fund, said Rick Haney, McCook Schools business manager, with about $223,000 saved for this purchase. Funds have been accumulating starting four years ago, he said, under the request of the school board’s finance committee and in anticipation of the iPads coming to the end of their cycle.

Hauxwell said she hopes the Chromebooks will alleviate parents’ concerns about the iPads. Board member Brian Esch responded that some of that lies with student responsibility. “Humans make those decisions, not machines,” he said. Superintendent Grant Norgaard added that cyber citizenship is continuing at the school, with special speakers and talks during the “WIN” period, a daily class right before lunch.

Norgaard said that at the time the iPads were first purchased, they contained all the capabilities the school needed and the Chromebooks did not. Since then, Chromebooks have revamped their system, incorporating technologies.

Technology has evolved in education in the past six years, Gross said, with student laptops doing the work that used to be done in computer labs. Buying textbooks in bulk is no longer necessary, he said, but instead, a fraction of textbooks are purchased, with curriculum built by teachers using online resources from educational and textbook websites.

The change from school-based computer labs to issuing each student a laptop also helps level the playing field for kids in poverty said Haney, who otherwise would have no access to that technology.

Students and faculty will have the option to buy the four-year-old iPads currently in use, said Gross, with some distributed among school district buildings. McCook Elementary principal Greg Borland said the iPads are still used frequently among elementary students.