WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — The Houston County School District announced its new learning device program for students, and parents at home flooded their Facebook post with questions. We want to provide some answers for you.
"We want to make sure that our students have the tools that are available to use today and not wait until next year to start," Brian Trent said.
Trent is the district's technology director, and he says they’re excited about a new learning devices program, but parents have questions.
So we set out to answer some of those questions. The first, "Is it a digital textbook?" No.
"It’s not necessarily a digital textbook. However, a lot of our textbooks have an online component to it," he said.
Will it replace printed materials? The answer is also, "No."
“No, it’s not going to replace textbooks today, but it’s going to be used to continue to enhance the ones we have," he said.
The Chromebooks will begin going out this month to students whose parents sign an agreement form.
Parents do have a choice as to whether the device comes home, but when they’re not at home, how are devices sanitized and kept secure?
The devices should be used only by the assigned student, and for security, "The ones that decide to stay at the school, they'll just be kept in a secure place," Trent said.
What happens if students don't have internet at home? Are lessons available offline?
"Some of the material can be used offline, but some of it will need to have internet access," he explained.
For students who don’t have that access, the district says they’re working to help.
"We've been having communications with different local internet providers here and trying to find that solution," he said,
The question parents really seem to want answered is, "Can you opt out?" The answer is "Yes," but Trent says he encourages parents to think before pulling the plug.
"I encourage them to really kind of talk to their schools and their teachers and their principals to kind of try and figure out what is the hesitation," he said.
Parents can opt out of students bringing the devices home, but students will be issued a device to use at school. If a parent doesn’t sign the online agreement, schools will be reaching out to explain that students need the devices to use at school, but they can opt out of bringing the device home.
The district also says they have an insurance plan for all devices that covers damages at no cost to parents, but not theft.