Mobile

Georgia District Deploys 36,000 1-to-1 Devices in 2 Months

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 11/13/17

A Georgia school district handled a 36,000-device deployment in under two months. Henry County Schools began its rollout of 1-to-1 technology in grades 3-12 in mid-August 2017, taking an average of two hours per school across the 53 elementaries, middle schools, high schools and academies.

EmpowerHCS, as the district program is called, used Incident IQ, a support platform typically used by schools for streamlining help requests. In this case it also helped the school system assign hardware to individual students with a scan-and-click process. The cloud-based software, produced by Lexicon Technologies, ties asset data to student user profiles synced with the district's student information system.

"This was the smoothest hardware roll-out that I've ever been a part of," said Chris Davis, director of technology operations at the school system, in a press release. "We could not have accomplished this as quickly and as accurately using any other system."

According to a district procurement report, that specific portion of the $36 million project cost the district $343,000. An additional $286,000 is being paid to Lexicon for summer diagnostic, repair and secure storage services. And $1.4 million covers accidental damage protection for the Chromebooks, Windows and iPad devices that make up the program.

Most of the funding went to cover the cost of the devices. Virtucom provided 35,700 HP Chromebook 11 G5s and 3,570 HP Educator Probook 430s for almost $20 million. Apple sold the district 9,505 iPad Air 2s for $3.3 million. The school system also worked with nearby Kennesaw State University on district-level training for staff, co-planning with grade level and content area coordinators, progress monitoring and reporting and digital citizenship support.