In March, the Pottsville Area school board decided to spend more than $1.6 million to equip every student in the district with an Apple iPad Air 2 for the 2016-17 school year.
To make sure it had enough of them to go around, the school board at its Aug. 17 meeting decided to add 40 more to the lease.
The recommendation was made by board member Christina DiCello, who is in charge of the district’s technology committee.
“We’ve had more students enroll in the district than was originally anticipated and we do not have enough iPads to outfit all of them currently enrolled. So I’m going to make a motion to lease an additional 40 iPad Airs to cover the students that we so far enrolled and don’t have covered. And that will give us approximately 20 extras should we have even more students enroll,” DiCello said at the meeting.
“We did originally have extras built into our lease and they have all been used because we’ve had more students enroll in the district than we originally estimated,” DiCello said.
“And the cost per iPad is?” asked Karen E. Rismiller, the board’s vice president, who ran the Aug. 17 meeting in the absence of school board President John F. Boran.
“It’s $100 per year to lease the iPad. So it’s approximately a $4,000 per year increase in the lease,” DiCello said.
“$4,000?” board member William Davidson asked.
“Approximately. There’s a finance fee in there as well. I don’t know that percentage. It’s a skosh over $4,000 a year for the additional iPads,” DiCello said.
“You’re making that motion?” Davidson asked.
“I’m making that motion,” DiCello said.
“I’ll second it,” Davidson said.
“You can’t make the motion. It’s your department,” board member Gary A. Cortese said.
“Sure she can,” Davidson said.
“Only the president can’t make it,” Richard A. Thornburg, the solicitor for the school board, said.
“Right,” Davidson said.
“Any issues? Any questions?” Rismiller asked the board.
“Do you think this iPad program is an incentive for people to move here?” Cortese asked.
“It’s possible. Certainly, we’re the only school in the county that has such a thing and it’s an advantage our students have over other districts in our county,” DiCello said.
In the voice vote, the following board members approved the addendum to the lease agreement: Cortese, Davidson, DiCello, Rismiller, Patrick F. Moran and Charles R. Wagner.
Ann Blankenhorn and Scott Thomas voted no, as they had in March when the board agreed to launch the iPad 1-to-1 initiative.
“I have to stay aligned with my previous vote,” Blankenhorn said.
“I think the kids need them. You can’t have some without the others. That being said, I voted no to the initiative. That’s why I’m voting no,” Thomas said.
“Approximately, $3,390.00 will be added to each year of the four-year lease. The district is still realizing a savings of over $500,000 total over the four years of the lease,” Superintendent Jeffrey S. Zwiebel said in an email to the newspaper Wednesday afternoon.
In March, Dianne Dougherty, technology director at Pottsville Area School District, said the four-year lease included 2,800 iPad Air 2 tablets, one for each student in grades K through 12 and all teachers and administrators.
But in an email Wednesday afternoon, Zwiebel said the district ordered 2,900. “204 staff members received iPads, leaving 2,696 for students. The district ordered conservatively due to budget,” Zwiebel said.
Dougherty could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
In March, Dougherty said the four-year lease also included the following:
• 220 MacBooks for teachers and administrators.
• 25 IMac computers and five MacBooks for the publications room in the high school.
• Mobile device management system and licensing, professional development for faculty and Apple professional services and support.
In March, the district agreed to pay $415,980.92 every year of the four-year lease, for a total of $1,663,923.68, according to Stephen C. Curran, the district’s business manager.
On Tuesday, Curran did not have specific figures regarding the additional 40 iPads to be added to the lease.
“We are still in the assessment phase as we have students enrolling and withdrawing daily. When the order is placed, I will forward the information to you,” Curran said in an email Tuesday.
According to Joseph Rich, Pottsville Area’s director of attendance, there were 2,724 students enrolled in the elementary, middle school and high school in Pottsville Area School District at the end of the 2015-16 school year. There were 2,723, enrolled as of noon Wednesday for the 2016-17 school year.
“That number is flexible because they are coming and going,” Rich said.
“At the end of the day today, we had 2,729 registered students. The daily enrollment, during this time of year, sometimes changes hour by hour,” Zwiebel said in his email at 4:33 p.m. Wednesday.