SYCAMORE – Sycamore School District 427 officials said during a Board of Education meeting this week they had some bad news to deliver: A delivery for new Chromebooks will not come in until after the 2020-2021 school year starts, and elementary school students will be the most affected.
Steve Wilder, superintendent for Sycamore School District 427, provided that initial update to the school board during their meeting Tuesday night.
"That was horrible news, to say the least," Wilder said.
Roxanne Horton, director of technology for Sycamore School District 427, said a perfect storm contributed to the delay. She said the CARES Act provided money for districts to enhance their remote learning capabilities. Because of that, she said, a lot of school districts in the country wanted to order more new Chromebooks.
"The demand went up, and everybody understands the supply and demand issue," Horton said.
Horton said the new devices were originally purchased primarily for middle school students. She said the old devices from the middle schoolers will be handed down to the kindergarten through fifth grade students once the new devices come in.
Horton said factories that produced Chromebooks also closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that also slowed production for the devices at the factory level. On top of that, she said, the parts supplier those factories use to create the devices also was sanctioned by the U.S. Commerce Department.
"Parts that were hard to get in the first place are even harder," Horton said.
Horton said the district does have the option to pursue a different model Chromebook, but they have been in line for them since May 8. If the district were to get in line for another model now, she said, estimated delivery dates for those other models wouldn't be until November or December.
Horton said she was originally given a delivery date of July 22 and she's hoping the new devices will come in by the middle of September. However, she said, she can't give a definitive answer on the new delivery date.
“Bottom line is it will take a miracle if the machines would arrive prior to the start of school,” Horton said. "So I hope you all believe in miracles and we can hope."
Wilder said he didn't have numbers readily available for how many students would participate in the fully remote or hybrid learning options. He said the district just opened up the portal for parents to opt into either option Monday night and the numbers are just starting to come in.
“But it won’t be final until next week,” Wilder said.
Wilder said fully remote students will be prioritized in getting Chromebooks in hand before school begins and there will be scheduled pick-up times for those students to get their devices. He said that procedure will also apply for when the new devices come in.
Wilder said the district will consider letting families use personal devices in the event there happens to be more fully remote learners than available devices.
"But we think we have enough devices to cover" those initial needs, Wilder said.
Meanwhile, Wilder said district administration met Tuesday afternoon to discuss extracurriculars and specials classes and what those course offerings may look like. As it stands Tuesday, he said, staff believes they are going to be able to offer the full curriculum that schools would normally have – it's just going to take a different format this year.
For example, Wilder said, band and chorus classes, rehearsals and performances will be held outside and not indoors to address concerns of potential aerosol transmission of the novel coronavirus.
“It was important to us to offer as many as the same opportunities as possible, and I think we’re going to be able to do that,” Wilder said.
Wilder said honors classes and advanced placement, or AP, courses also will be offered for this coming school year, as well as dual high school and college credit courses.
Elementary, middle and high school officials also provided detailed reports during the Tuesday meeting about what the upcoming school year will look like for both fully remote and hybrid students at various grade levels. They emphasized the point about how they believe the fully remote plans will not be sub-par compared to the hybrid plan and there will be different protocols for the on site learning component this year, like elementary students having socially distant lockers and cubbies but middle and high schoolers not having lockers due to health and safety concerns.
School board president Jim Dombek said he believed the update gave board members a better idea of what the coming school year is going to look like.
"It still is a little hard to wrap our heads around it," Dombek said. "I think, as we go through, we'll get the hang of it."
Wilder said he realizes whatever plan the district will put in place is not going to make everybody happy no matter what, but he believes the plan board officials approved last week is a reasonable one and commends the staff for putting in the work to create the plan and the work that's still to come with plan implementation. He said he has appreciated the input from the community, as well as district staff, regarding the plan and he is excited for school to start and to keep everyone as safe as possible at the same time.
“I think they recognize how difficult the situation that we find ourselves in is,” Wilder said.
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