ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
First-graders Josean Ortiz and Giuliana Patricelli use a Chomebook at Oaklandvale Elementary School.
BY BRIDGET TURCOTTE
SAUGUS — Saugus officials are hovering over the keyboard when it comes to finding funding for Google Chromebooks for students.
Earlier this year, the panel approved a $29.6 million spending plan for fiscal year 2018, up from $28.1 million last year. The amount includes an allocation of $82,000 to fund the Chromebooks. The request will be considered by the Finance Committee in the spring.
School Committee member Peter Manoogian said in a meeting earlier this month that the board also voted to submit a request for Town Meeting to fund the purchase. He drafted an article and presented it to the committee on Feb. 16. Manoogian complained that his peers hadn’t yet acted on the article. But a few members questioned whether it was too soon to ask the town for more money.
The new technology will be necessary next year when MCAS testing will require a computer, according to committee member Arthur Grabowski. Eric Jones, principal of the Oaklandvale Elementary School, said his students are already there.
Children in grades four and five are using Google Docs for the majority of their writing assignments, he said. All students are completing assignments using the tool and teachers are using the comments feature to provide feedback in real time. The open line of communication has motivated students to complete quality work — many of them are checking for corrections and making improvements after school hours, without being asked to, said Jones.
“Our goal is to have the kindergartners learn how to log in to Google Docs so that by the time they’re in the first grade, they can jump right into it,” Jones said.
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The Oaklandvale School has about 130 Chromebooks for 220 students to use, he said. Each year, money is donated to each school by the Saugus Business Education Collaborative. Jones said for the past five years he has used every penny, $2,000 to $3,000 each year, on Chromebooks.
“This was my vision five years ago and it’s finally happening this year,” Jones said. I can see it happening. The biggest hurdle was getting the tools, getting the technology. We’re getting to the point where we need more. Teachers want one for every student.”
Gianna Ferace, a fourth-grader, worked on a letter to a book author over February vacation. Her teacher, Joy Wright, was able to follow the changes made to the document and communicate with her on feedback through Google Docs’ comments feature.
“I think it’s helpful,” Ferace said. “If you make mistakes, you can see it.”
A search online revealed Chromebooks range from $149 to $499 each, depending on the model. The amount of cash included in the budget would fund the purchase of between 164 and 550 laptops.
“(Superintendent) Dr. David DeRuosi’s recommendation was to keep $82,000 in the budget and then figure out how we’re going to do it,” said chairwoman Jeannie Meredith. “We don’t know how much money we’re getting from the town, we don’t know how much we’re saving with the soft freeze — where’s the fire? Let’s see what we get, what we need and where we’re at before we ask for more.”
DeRuosi implemented a budget freeze, which he calls a “soft freeze,” to save the district money by the end of the school year.
“About halfway through the school year, we put a freeze on the budget and we start to go in and check and look at utility run rates, maybe resignations or retirements — we basically look at cost centers,” he said. “It’s a practice that the committee here has done before. You begin to look at your projections versus your budget line items. A school budget is fluid, it moves all the time. There’s always a cost differential.”
DeRuosi said he has been honest with the committee and asked members to meet twice a month to discuss the freeze and how and where it could be beneficial to the district.
Manoogian said DeRuosi never mentioned the possibility of paying for the Chromebooks with the savings from a soft freeze when the board met with the Finance Committee on Feb. 14.
“I have learned that the superintendent is telling members, of which I am not one, that he has the money and does not need the special article,” said Manoogian.
But DeRuosi argued that that was not the case. He said in an Item interview Tuesday that he couldn’t predict whether there would be ample savings to fund the entire one-time cost.
“I believe it’s premature,” said committee member Elizabeth Marchese, who requested that the board rescind the earlier motion to ask for the money in both the budget and a town meeting article. “We have not yet received any monies or know what monies we’re going to receive from the town.”
Marchese later changed her motion and asked to revisit the matter on March 23, the final meeting before the Board of Selectmen close the Annual Town Meeting warrant. The request was ultimately supported unanimously.
Bridget Turcotte can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @BridgetTurcotte.