As Technology Goes Home, Schools Work Out Who Pays for Repairs

When Debbie Myers’ son and his classmates were first sent home with school iPads last year, she remembers parents asking what would happen if the iPads broke. This year, she found out. Parents of Williamsville, N.Y., middle school students assigned the devices were given a choice: spend $34 for insurance on the device or assume responsibility for its full $400 cost.

What upset Myers the most was that the insurance form was sent home two weeks after the tablets.

“It wasn’t the point of $34,” Myers said. “It was the principle that nobody knew this was coming.”

As schools send home more iPads, Chromebooks and other devices with students, districts across the region are dealing with more than just loading apps, training teachers and ensuring students get the most out of the technology.

They’re also grappling with an inevitable question: Who pays when they break?

The answer, to varying degrees, is often the students and their parents.

But as some school districts roll out new programs designed to put a tablet or laptop into the hands of every student, administrators must navigate new choices about how to protect the technology.

“The iPad is a totally new realm, as we in school districts all around know,” said Thomas Maturski, assistant superintendent for finance and management services at Williamsville Central Schools. “So we’re trying to approach it in a reasonable way that is the best for our students, parents and our overall community, because there is a cost to providing this.”

Sending devices home with students, while growing in popularity, is still relatively new for most districts. Some, including Sweet Home and Holland, have assigned iPads to every student in high school and middle school for the first time this year. At Lewiston-Porter, the district has distributed Google Chromebooks to every freshman and half of the sophomores in a pilot program.

Like other districts, Lewiston-Porter has required parents and students to sign a form, stating they would be responsible if the student damages the Chromebooks, which cost about $300. Administrators point out that students have been responsible for the cost of damaged or lost textbooks for years. Load up a few books in a backpack, they said, and students can be carrying around a liability just as costly as a Chromebook.

“Parents are very cognizant of the fact that it is just like a textbook,” said Andrew Auer, Lewiston-Porter technology coordinator

Protecting investment

Textbooks, however, don’t have glass screens that can crack or electronic components that can break, and Lewiston-Porter administrators are also exploring the possibility of buying insurance that would help cover the cost of repairing damaged devices or replacing lost ones.

“We can’t put 600 to 800 computers out there and not protect the investment,” said Lewiston-Porter Superintendent Christopher Roser.

Several school administrators said they have attempted to develop policies that strike a balance between fostering student responsibility and placing too much financial burden on families.

In Holland and Sweet Home, the districts have developed three-tiered polices with increasing charges for students that repeatedly break or lose their school-issued gear. That means in Holland, after the first incident, a student pays $49. A second incident costs $200 or the price of repair. After that, students are responsible for the full cost of the device or repair.

“I explained to them, with privilege comes responsibility,” Holland Superintendent Cathy Fabiotis said. “This really isn’t much different than the computers they use.”

Sweet Home also has three-tiered policy for damage or replacement costs that charges students between $20 and $200. Before distributing devices to all students, the district spent about a year researching protective cases and researching policies to protect the 1,800 iPads it has distributed to sixth through 12th graders.

“We’re not handing them out and crossing our fingers,” said John Brucato, Sweet Home’s systems engineer. “We put a lot of time and effort into policies and procedures. A lot of professional development opportunities for teachers so they can better use them in the classroom.”

Williamsville

Williamsville Central Schools, which first began piloting a program to assign iPads to individual students in 2013, offered the option for families to buy insurance this fall after seeing the number of repairs needed after the tablets were distributed to all fifth-graders last year.

About 20 percent of the iPads were damaged in some way last year, Maturski said. Last year, the district handled many of those repairs, including cracked screens, but has not exceeded its ability to internally complete the repairs since the program has expanded to all fifth- and sixth-graders.

Today, the district has thousands of iPads and other devices assigned to students, who can take them home to complete assignments, communicate with teachers and do other academic work.

This year, Maturski said, Williamsville officials decided to give parents the option of paying $34 for insurance coverage to pay for repairs or replacement. But Maturski acknowledged that the forms detailing the parent and student responsibility were not sent out until about two weeks after the district sent home the devices, a time frame he attributed to wanting to get the technology in the hands of students as soon as possible.

Myers, who has a sixth-grade son in Williamsville, said she has no problem with using technology in the classroom, but she felt parents had little choice when they first were given a form detailing student responsibility for the devices. The paperwork did not include information about a third choice now available at a parent’s request: Students can leave the devices in school and do their homework through web-based apps on computers at home.

“As a district, we’re listening to them,” Maturski said of parent concerns. “We are trying to make this program better for everyone, with the emphasis on students first and teaching and learning. It is brand-new, and we are continuing to look at it very closely.”

Niagara Falls experience

While districts are grappling with new questions about tablets and cloud-based laptops, the idea of sending computers home with students isn’t entirely new.

Fourteen years ago, when Niagara Falls opened its new high school, students were assigned a laptop they could take home, but the program was marked by reports of stolen, damaged or lost laptops. The district eventually pulled back the laptops for classroom use and now offers take-home devices on an as-needed basis for students who meet certain requirements, including good attendance.

Today, the Niagara Falls is in the midst of a new technology expansion, including upgraded wireless systems and carts of laptops dedicated to classrooms.

“What we learned was that when we gave laptops to students to take home, they didn’t always bring them back into school,” said Darlene Sprague, administrator for information services in Niagara Falls City School District. “So when teachers wanted to use the technology in the classroom in a one-on-one kind of way, not everybody had their computers.”

©2014 The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.)