SILVERDALE – Fifth- and sixth-grade students at Central Kitsap School District will begin working with laptop computers in April, which is earlier than had been planned.

Central Kitsap School District Superintendent David McVicker said the district had planned to purchase computers for fifth graders in the 2016-2017 school year, and for sixth-graders in the 2017-2018 year. But now the district will pull those plans forward to the current 2015-2016 school year.

The purchase is part of the district’s multi-year “1-to-1” initiative to have one computer available for each student.

McVicker said one impact the computers will have is to to allow easier, faster testing.

CKSD board member Eric Greene said of the computers, “It’s not just for testing. It’s allowing us to compress that state-required testing and to give us more time for our teachers to teach in their classroom.”

Doug Newell, CKSD executive director of business & operations, said the reasons for purchasing the computers early was two-fold: One reason was that teachers were enthusiastic about working with the computers. The other reason was that prices for the computers was currently lower than anticipated.

“What’s driving this is demand, plus prices are still 25 percent low,” Newell said. “There’s demand signal and we have the ability to lean into it.”

The plan is to purchase approximately 2,100 Chromebook laptop computers. The Chromebooks run the popular Linux operating system, and the district also makes use of the Google Apps For Education system. 865 computers will go to the sixth grade and 850 will go to the fifth grade. The remainder will be used to decommission 1990s-era computer labs. 67 charging carts will also be purchased. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $615,000.

The initial deployment of the computers will be limited to on-premises use. Take home options will be developed at a later date when the district has established a student device “check-out” process.

In the future, the district would also like to work with Internet providers to come up with a plan to provide students who do not already have Internet access at home to get online.

According to CKSD, a benefit of the plan is to “provide new classroom computing resources to enhance the teaching and learning environment for 21st century skills.”

[ LINK: Approval of Chromebook purchase for grades 5 and 6 (pdf) ]