Students in school district will get sturdy cases for laptops

This school year, Allentown School District went to great lengths to get laptops into the hands of each student for remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and to make sure they had internet service at home. The move was a big push toward closing the digital divide between lower income youngsters in the city and their better-off suburban counterparts.

The next step is to keep those laptops from breaking. When ASD students return to school in the fall, they will be issued special cases to keep their laptops safe as they tote them back and forth to school.

The district plans to buy 16,500 IT Laptop Cases for Chromebooks to protect the devices against drops, as well as from getting wet or overheating. Jose Rivera, ASD Network Infrastructure Manager, told school directors at Thursday’s remote Committee-of-the-Whole meeting that ASD staff did a thorough search for the kind of case that could protect against rough treatment.

“We were looking into something that would be rugged enough to sustain a drop,” said Rivera. “We actually got these bags and we dropped a device a few times to test it for ourselves.”

“These Always-on Chromebook cases provide full-time protection without removing the Chromebook from the case,” he said.

“These particular ones come with a lifetime warranty,” Rivera said. “In case any of these would break, we could replace it right away.”

Some school directors were enthusiastic about the laptop cases.

“Because our school district is a walking district, this is really important to students, walking to and from school,” Phoebe Harris said.

ASD plans to use $312,675 in federal Title I money to buy the cases. The purchase includes include pouches for laptop cables and is structured to allow for air flow around the laptops to keep them from overheating.

School director Lisa Conover made it clear that the students will need to turn in their school-issued equipment at the end of the year.

“If we’re going to spend this money on devices and/or cases, we definitely want them returned,” Conover said. “It should belong to the district.”