VALDOSTA — The Valdosta City Schools Board of Education discussed the VCS 1:1 initiative, alternatives, and costs at its annual board retreat.

The 1:1 initiative aims to provide a computer for every student in VCS. The board looked at purchasing Chromebook laptop computers for the initiative.

“This would do so much for our kids, even people moving into the school system. They want schools that are high in technology,” said board member Warren Lee.

Board member Vanassa Flucas added, “For some (students), this will be the only computer they’ll have.”

Chromebook computers could also replace textbooks in some cases, said VCS Assistant Superintendent Scarlet Brown.

“The recommendation with social studies is to look at Chromebooks more than textbooks, as there are many more digital resources available,” Brown said.

However, due to the current demand from schools everywhere, VCS may not be able to purchase as many Chromebooks as needed as soon as it would like, said Mark Swift, VCS chief technology officer.

“I would want to try it somewhere (first), do a pilot (program),” Swift said.

Swift worried about locking VCS into a contract for bandwidth (Internet access) for Chromebooks. 

“It’s $1 million a year just for bandwidth. In a couple years, we may have citywide bandwidth,” he said. “A Chromebook is very limited if you don’t have internet access. You can do very limited things with it offline.”

“It’s a paperweight,” board member Stacy Bush said, “If we buy Chromebooks, this $1.3 million we spend on laptops, we can spend on Chromebooks.”

Swift said Internet hotspots could be used in addition or as an alternative to Chromebooks.

“About 80 percent of our (students’) parents have Internet (access) at home. We’re thinking we could fill in that gap with hotspots we can send them home with, and it (the hotspot) only works with their Chromebooks. It’s about $10 a month,” Swift said.

Swift said the hotspots would be provided free with purchase of Internet access in the current plan.

VCS Superintendent Todd Cason suggested community partners could help fund the project.

“People are willing to fund it because of the results we’re seeing right now,” Flucas said. “You’re going to have parents jump in on this. We can do this with E-SPLOST.”

Cason said it would probably take a year to develop policies for the initiative.

“Most of our policy is centered around them (students) taking them (Chromebooks) home and giving them back,” Swift said.

“We’re going to figure out what money we have,” board member Dean Rexroth said. “Concurrent with that, we could start the policy-making with the assumption that the money’s going to get sorted out one way or the other through finance.”