Schools rush to clean Chromebooks
Healthy and safety measures such as cleaning and properly packaging Chromebooks has slowed getting the devices out to students, says a Marlborough principal, as day one of online learning from home is set to start on Wednesday.
Marlborough Principals’ Association president, and Bohally Intermediate principal, Shane Campbell said about 170 Chromebooks were in the process of being sent to some of his students.
‘‘At least 70 per cent of our students have a device and up to 30 per cent we will need to provide one for,’’ he said.
However, because of Covid-19 there were certain steps the schools needed to follow before dispatching the devices.
‘‘Devices will be cleaned so they can be sent out safely and the only way we can do that is send them out via courier, we aren’t allowed to deliver them,’’ Campbell said.
‘‘We are doing it as quickly as we can but we have to wait, first of all, for the packaging to arrive, then we have to package them, label them, and then we have to wait for the courier be able to deliver them.
‘‘So I am not too sure how long that process is going to take, it may take up to seven working days,’’ Campbell said.
‘‘It’s not going to be a 5-minute job to package 170 devices.
‘‘That will take a while but we are working as quickly as we can,’’ he said.
Campbell and one other staff had to get ‘‘sign off’’ from the Ministry of Education to be in the school during the lockdown.
The Education Minister was working with companies like Spark and Vodafone to get students access to internet, Campbell said.
However, prior to lockdown, the school had given students hard copies of their study materials to ensure they did not miss out on classwork.
Queen Charlotte College principal Betty Whyte said out of 380 students, only about 40 required learning devices. The school had lent devices to 15 students, and was waiting for 25 more devices from the ministry, Whyte said.
Students without digital learning devices had been given text books and exercises books before the lockdown, she said.