School

With another year of possible education budget cuts looming, Limestone County Schools recently bought new iPad tablet computers for each of its school board members and five other school officials.

Officials say the new technology — which cost a total of $20,364 the first year and $12,816 per year thereafter — is needed in order to change to paperless board meetings. Opponents, none of whom wanted to identify themselves, said the same thing could have been achieved with the laptop computers the board members already have. They argue that it seems steep when classroom teachers already have to buy their own school supplies, such as paper towels and paper, for their classrooms.

But officials say the iPads — which fall somewhere on the technology scale between smart phones and laptops — are more reliable and less prone to viruses than the laptops they have.

Director of Technology Karen Tucker said the laptops would be more difficult to manage in order to achieve paperless meetings.

“All laptops would have to be brought to the Central Office a day before the board meetings to make sure all updates are installed and all spyware and viruses are deleted in order for board members to access all documents needed for a successful board meeting each month,” Tucker said. “This would take away the laptops from them at the most crucial time when they need them to view the online agenda.”

Board President Earl Glaze said he prefers the iPad over his laptop because it always works.

He pointed out that the last school board meeting was delayed because Internet service was down. The iPads, he said, work all of the time.

“You don’t have to try to find a hot spot,” he said, meaning an area where Internet service will work best.

Despite the cost, Superintendent Barry Carroll said the iPads were the most efficient way to go paperless.

“We have discussed going paperless for over a year,” he said. “I believe the board wanted to go paperless as a cost savings and space-saving effort. The technology is available, and we already had the Limestone County Schools website with this capability. We reviewed several ways we could go paperless. Although it could be argued that going in another direction might have certain advantages, the method selected was the most efficient, effective and budget-neutral method available. I do not see any reason why the board should not have moved in this direction.”

The initial cost of the 12 iPads for board members, principals and directors was $629 each or a total of $7,548, Carroll said. The laptops cost about $1,000 each when they were purchased several years ago for principals, directors and board members. The Internet service needed to go online costs $49 per month per user or a total of $7,056 per year, he said.

The data service to support the iPads costs $40 per month per user or a total of $5,760 per year, he said. That amounts to $12,816 a year to operate the 12 iPads.

One downside to the iPad is that if board members want to make notes about an agenda item or about some supporting document, they have to do it on a separate computer document they create because they cannot edit the exiting documents, Glaze said.

“We looked into doing that but the software cost too much,” he said.

Going paperless

Carroll said the savings in going paperless would pay for the iPads in fewer than two years.

“The initial cost of going paperless is certainly more than the cost of printing the agendas and (supporting) information for just one month,” he said. “But over time, the savings from going paperless far outweighs the initial expense of the iPads and service. Our savings include the cost of large amounts of paper, binding materials, copier toner and administrative and support staff time.”

Like a laptop, the iPads will allow school officials to get information to the board well ahead of the meetings.

“Another advantage to utilizing our Web-based paperless board meetings includes having the ability to compile and preload information and superintendent recommendations as they occur during the month, instead of waiting two days before the board meeting to print and send the information to board members,” Carroll said. “I believe going paperless is the right direction for our school board. I am proud that our board was eager to be progressive and to move forward in learning new technology that will be a benefit and a savings to us. This is cutting edge technology — very cutting edge.”

Does any of this help the public?

One benefit of paperless board meetings is the schools can now quickly send documents to the media via e-mail, which means personnel decisions made during the meetings can be posted to The News Courier’s website more quickly than before when a reporter had to type the names listed and then post the information.

“I believe the route we are taking will provide the most efficient and effective method for delivering and storing information,” Carroll said. “We should be able to provide information to employees, the media and the public in a more timely and efficient manner.”

In the past, the media has been given only the agenda ahead of time and often there is not enough time to round up the additional information needed to write a story before the meeting. The media would be able to alert the public in advance of proposals coming before the board if it is given the more detailed data a day before the meeting.