SHORTAGES, sanctions holding up laptops for schools.

SAN FRANCISCO — Schools across the United States are facing shortages and long delays, of up to sev- eral months, in getting this year’s most crucial back-toschool supplies: the laptops and other equipment needed for online learning, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The world’s three biggest computer companies, Lenovo, HP and Dell, have told school districts that they have a shortage of nearly 5 million laptops, in some cases exacerbated by Trump administration sanctions on Chinese suppliers, according to interviews with over two dozen U.S. schools, districts in 15 states, suppliers, computer companies and industry analysts.

As the school year begins virtually in many places because of the coronavirus, educators nationwide worry that computer shortfalls will compound the inequities — and the headaches for students, families and teachers.

“This is going to be like asking an artist to paint a picture without paint. You can’t have a kid do distance learning without a computer,” said Tom Baumgarten, superintendent of the Morongo County School District in California’s Mojave Desert, where all 8,000 students qualify for free lunch and most need computers for distance learning.

Baumgarten was set to order 5,000 Lenovo Chromebooks in July when his vendor called him off, saying Lenovos were getting “stopped by a government agency because of a component from China that’s not allowed here,” he said. He switched to HPs and was told they would arrive in time for the first day of school near the end of August. The delivery date then changed to September, then October.

Chromebooks and other low-cost PCs are the computers of choice for most budget-strapped schools. The delays started in the spring and intensified because of high demand and disruptions of supply chains, the same reasons that toilet paper and other pandemic necessities flew off shelves a few months ago.

Then came the Trump administration’s July 20 announcement targeting Chinese companies it says were implicated in forced labor or other human-rights abuses against a Muslim minority population, the Uighurs. The Commerce Department imposed sanctions on 11 Chinese companies, including the manufacturer of several models of Lenovo laptops.

“It’s a tough one because I’m not condoning child slave labor for computers, but can we not hurt more children in the process?” said Matt Bartenhagen, technology director for Williston Public Schools in North Dakota, a district of 4,600 waiting on an order for 2,000 Lenovo Chromebooks. “They were supposed to be delivered in July. Then August. Then late August. The current shipping estimate is ‘hopefully” by the end of the year.

Lenovo had informed Denver and other districts over the spring and summer of supply-chain delays. In late July, Lenovo sent a letter to customers to say the “trade controls” announced by the Commerce Department

would cause another slowdown of at least several weeks.

“This delay is a new development and is unrelated to supply constraints previously communicated,” Matthew Zielinski, president of Lenovo North America said in the letter, which referred to the sanctions on a Chinese supplier, Hefei Bitland Information Technology Co. Ltd. The letter listed 23 Lenovo models for education and corporate customers made by Bitland.

“Effective immediately, we are no longer manufacturing these devices at Bitland,” the letter said, adding that Lenovo is working on “a transition plan” to shift production to other sites.

A Lenovo official told California’s Department of Education that the company has a backlog of more than 3 million Chromebooks, said Daniel Thigpen, the department’s spokesman.

Lenovo declined to respond to repeated questions from AP seeking confirmation of the backlog and details on the numbers of devices delayed, replying only to deny a question on whether computers were seized by U.S. customs, as some schools were told by suppliers.

U.S. government agencies said they have no knowledge of the computers’ whereabouts and also deny any were seized.

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not have any record of detained laptops matching this description,” the agency said in a statement.

The Department of Commerce said that it added Hefei Bitland to its so-called Entity List, which restricts the export and in-country transfer of items by sanctioned companies. “It does not apply to the importation of Chromebooks from China,” the department said in a statement, adding, however, “we should all agree that American school children should not be using computers from China that were produced from forced labor.”

There are no nationwide tallies on the numbers of laptops and other devices for which schools are waiting. The Associated Press found that some of America’s biggest school districts are among those with outstanding orders of Chromebooks, other laptops or hot spots for internet connections, including Los Angeles, Clark County,

Nev., Wake County, N.C., Houston, Palm Beach, Fla., and Hawaii, the nation’s only statewide school district.

A recent poll of California’s 1,100 districts showed schools across the state are waiting for at least 300,000 back-ordered computers, said Mary Nicely, a senior policy adviser to the state superintendent. A survey in Alabama found that about 20 schools were waiting for 33,000 computers, said Ryan Hollingsworth, director of the School Superintendents of Alabama.

Smaller districts in Montana, New York, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, New Hampshire and elsewhere also are awaiting laptop orders, with delivery dates that have become moving targets.

The backlog and delays have become so widespread that some students will be forced to start the semester without an essential piece of technology for remote learning, said Michael Flood, senior vice president of Kajeet, which works with more than 2,000 school districts in the U.S. and Canada.