43
Chromebook roll out begins tonight in Austintown
Chromebooks arrive for Austintown students
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Austintown School District parents can begin picking up computers for their children tonight as the district rolls out the devices to students in grades six through 12.
The district spent about $1.1 million over the summer on 3,000 HP Chromebooks, using Google software, and carts for them. About 200 of the laptops were rolled out to district teachers a few weeks ago; tonight is the first of four nights that parents can pay an insurance fee of $50 to allow their kids to use the device in class and take it home.
If a parent cannot pay the $50 tonight, or any of the four pickup nights, a payment plan is available. The district is not providing carrying cases for students, but cases will be available for purchase online.
“I think everyone’s still nervous about the whole thing. I’m actually really comfortable with the deployment. I know I’m going to be able to track them; I know who’s going to have what,” said Tom Ventresco, district technology coordinator. “We are going to remote filter these so when you go home, you are going to use the content filter” from the school.
The Chromebooks take five seconds to boot up, require a student log-in to operate, and feature an 11-hour battery life. District officials are encouraging students to charge them at home and use the battery life during class.
Students will be able to use Google programming, such as Google Drive, which allows Google users to edit projects at the same time from different devices. Four people, for example, can write their own sections of a group paper at the same time.
“It really does open up a lot for the kids and the classroom,” Superintendent Vincent Colaluca said.
Parents can RSVP for one of the four nights online, at www.austintownschools.org. Those nights are tonight, Thursday and Nov. 20 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Fitch High School. The final night will be during conference night, Nov. 25, at both Austintown Middle School and Fitch. Parents will get informational handouts and will watch a presentation on the new devices.
Ventresco said the three computer labs within Fitch will remain intact for this school year as a backup plan for events such as state testing in the spring.
District officials talked since July about why they wanted to get computers in the hands of so many students. It’s because there was a lack of enough computers for kids during state testing times, and because some kids were not as familiar with having to type on a computer and that could impact their scores.