East Brunswick Schools Rethink How They Replace Student Laptops

EAST BRUNSWICK, NJ — East Brunswick schools are relying on about 400 loaner laptops as the district’s student devices age, and officials say the money to replace them has been shrinking.

Superintendent Evelyn Mamman and Business Administrator Joseph Crotchfelt spoke about the problem at the Board of Education meeting last week. They were answering a question about whether the district’s inventory of devices is at capacity and how students get working laptops quickly.

Mamman said the cause is not the district’s network.

“We don’t have a Wi-Fi issue. We don’t have a district infrastructure issue. It is that it’s old and cheap,” Mamman said.

Students in grades 7 through 12 use Windows laptops, Mamman said. She said the district buys basic models that cost about $300. Older laptops had 4 gigabytes of memory, and the ones bought for the current seventh graders have 8, she said.

“It is basic laptops that are at the bottom of a barrel. That’s what the problem is,” she said.

Mamman said a Microsoft update pushed out in May caused trouble with screen casting that teachers have noticed. The larger issue, she said, is the age of the devices. Web filtering software added to the laptops also takes up space, she said. Older laptops also take a lot of work to reimage, which she said is part of the reason loaners tend to stay out.

“Having a device that is five to seven years old in this day and age is just not sustainable,” Mamman said. She said staff devices are six to seven years old too.

Mamman said she has gotten calls from parents whose children needed a working device when none was available. She said about 400 loaners that went out never came back because the original laptops weren’t working.

Crotchfelt said replacement funding used to be $700,000 a year and is now $500,000. The district made no cuts this year, but it cut about $100,000 in each of the two years before that, he said.

“As costs are going up on the laptops, our funding is going down to replace, so that is never good when those things are going in opposite directions,”said Crotchfelt.

The Business Administrator said the district is now using the best of the laptops that come back as loaners. He said the district is also using money from its enterprise fund to buy some loaners instead of saving it.

“We’re trying to change our philosophy so we can address some of these issues creatively,” Crotchfelt said.

Mamman said the district is working on a replacement plan that looks several years ahead.

“We’re looking into a replacement strategy that is not looking at technology as a year-to-year thing,” she said. She said she would like students moving up to the high school to get new laptops instead of keeping the ones they were given in seventh grade.

When a board member asked how long the laptops are supposed to last, officials said about three years.

Board President Marianne Tanious said the discussion should carry over into the district’s budget planning.

“Maybe let’s remember that for the next budget cycle too,” Tanious said.

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