Soddy-Daisy High School sophomore Hannah Robertson uses a computer while taking Pat Rose’s computer applications class Wednesday morning.
TECH BY THE NUMBERSHere’s a look at what technology Hamilton County Schools has in place:* 13,595 –Windows computers* 1,256 — Apple computers* 1,826 — iPads/tabletsAGE OF PCs* 564 — PCs 1 year or newer* 5,800 — PCs 2 to 3 years old* 5,952 — PCs 4 to 7 years old* 1,279 — PCs 8 years or olderSource: Hamilton County Department of Education, information technology department
The Hamilton County Schools system is working feverishly to move into the 21st century. The superintendent wants to put iPads or similar tablet devices into the hands of all 42,000 students. He wants all schools to be wireless and all students to have home Internet access. Altogether, the infrastructure and devices will cost close to $20 million.
But pieces of that plan must be moved to the back burner because the state has put new requirements on school districts: They must be technologically ready for online state assessments by the 2014-15 school year. To get there, Hamilton County will front some $300,000 to upgrade about 6,000 existing desktops. Without the short-term fix, officials say the school system’s aging inventory of about 15,000 computers could not support the new online exams.
But if iPads were already in all schools, there would be little need for those computers.
“IT [information technology] doesn’t have the luxury to wait on all that to come together,” said Patty Kinsey, county IT director. “Time is of the essence for us to meet these [testing] deadlines.”