Waterford Graded School District Expands Chromebook Initiative

• By Leila Meyer
• 07/21/16

Waterford Graded School District (WGSD) in Wisconsin is updating its 1-to-1 Chromebook initiative for students in grades 3-8.

The district, with three elementary schools and one middle school, had a 1-to-1 Dell laptop program for grades 7 and 8 for several years, and it had a shared Chromebook program for the lower grades, according to information on the WGSD Meetings site. In the 2015-16 school year, the district implemented a 1-to-1 Chromebook program for grades 3-6, with grade 3 and 4 students receiving new Chromebooks and grade 5 and 6 students receiving the previously shared Chromebooks.

With the upcoming 2016-17 school year, students in grades 3 and 6 will receive new Chromebooks, and then the devices will follow the students for three years as they move up through the grade levels, according to a report in The Journal Times. The school district serves approximately 150 students in each grade, so it will purchase roughly 300 new Chromebooks each year at a cost of $65,600 for the devices, plus $15,600 for three-year warranties. It is purchasing the devices from VPC Innovations and the warranties from Technology Resource Advisors.

"From here on out it will be a normal budgeting item," Ed Brzinski, superintendent of the school district told The Journal Times. The district will continue to purchase new Chromebooks for the third and sixth grade students each year. He estimates the amortized cost of the devices to be about $77 per year, per student.