Surge in remote learning leads to nationwide shortage of Chromebooks
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Less than two weeks before the start of the school year, a Western Massachusetts school district turned to their greater community with a time-sensitive request: Have an extra laptop or phone?
In the weeks before the start of the school year for just under a million public school students in Massachusetts, education officials had an urgent request to fulfill: Buying laptops for each student enrolled in hybrid or remote learning.
This request came with a hefty price tag and a dwindling supply as educators and parents searched online and in stores for remaining devices on the shelves.
Production of Chromebooks, the device of choice for schools, was halted earlier this year due to shutdowns of Chinese factories which built electronic components for the cost-effective laptops.
The largest public school district in Massachusetts, Boston Public Schools, made it a priority this spring to obtain thousands of laptops and distributed 20,000 to K-12 students in April.
“Everybody is fighting for them,” Mark Racine, chief technology officer for the Boston Public Schools, told
EdWeek. “We had some districts reach out to us and say, ‘Can we buy some off of you?’”
For smaller school districts, orders were left unfulfilled for weeks, even months. Northampton Public Schools placed two orders for Chromebooks in June and July which have not arrived by the first week in September. The delayed shipments led to district officials turning to the greater community seeking loaner devices to distribute to their youngest students.
