Columbus gives schools $7M for Chromebooks

Columbus will give Columbus City Schools more than $7 million to buy 20,000 Chromebooks to help students as they take classes from home this coming school year.

The 50,000-student Columbus school district already had distributed more than 20,000 Chromebook laptops and more than 1,000 wireless hot-spot devices by early June. Many Columbus families don’t have the resources to buy their own devices.

“COVID-19 exacerbated inequities,” Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said Wednesday. “We know the inequities and disparities are great.”

The money is coming out of the $157 million in federal CARES Act funding the city received to deal with the pandemic.

When classes restart on Sept. 8, the plan was for Columbus students in grades K-8 to go to class two days a week and learn from home three days a week for at least the first half of 2020-21.

Meanwhile, high schoolers would learn completely online.

But Columbus City Schools Superintendent

Talisa Dixon, in a Zoom call with reporters Sunday afternoon, said the upswing in coronavirus cases in Columbus is making her think that all students might have to take classes remotely when school starts.

Also, the district's teachers union on Monday released an "open letter" signed by about 2,700 educators calling for the 2020-21 school year to start entirely online.

Dixon on Wednesday said technology and digital learning will be critical components to the future of the schools.

A recent report that the Columbus

Foundation commissioned found that more than 30% of households in some Columbus neighborhoods don't have broadband access.

“No matter how this school year looks, our students must have these basic technology tools,” said Columbus City Council President Pro Tem Elizabeth Brown.

Dixon said the new Chromebooks help close the gap.

“We have over 50,000 students. We did not have enough devices for each of our students,” she said. mferench@dispatch.com @Markferenchik