(9/20) A national shortage of Chromebooks – resultant of so many schools across the country electing to teach classes online ... has made it difficult for the Fairfield Area School District (FASD) to purchase the number of necessary units by the district.

The school has been struggling to a limited degree to accumulate enough Chromebooks to place the computers in the hands of all the students participating online classes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many schools to either hold only virtual, online classes, or hold ‘hybrid’ classes, meaning that students will attend some classes in-person, and other classes virtually.

FASD is holding hybrid classes, with all-virtual-learning an option for students whose parents remain unconvinced that it is safe yet to allow their children to attend in-person classes, or students who may not be able to comply with COVID precautionary methods, due to other issues or medical conditions.

Of course, virtual learning necessitates the use of computers, and FASD has been attempting to provide them, in the form of Chromebooks, to students who may not have access at home to their own computers. The school has also been supplying multiple Chromebooks to families who have multiple students, if such is deemed warranted.

Technology Coordinator Nathanial Makar told the school board at their September meeting that the district is "out of Chrome Books that we can distribute," although a small number of the district's supply remains in-school for special needs.

Makar said some 500 Chromebooks have been distributed thus far, since the start of the new school year, but that this is short of the actual need.

He said additional supplies of computers have been ordered, and are expected to arrive in a week or two, noting that there has been such a Chromebook shortage, that the order that is expected to arrive was placed in May. "Every school district in the country wants these Chromebooks," he said.

In related matters, the district is also working to provide families with students in the district who do not have internet service, in order to enable them to also take advantage of virtual learning.

To accomplish this, Makar stated, the district is providing Cradlepoint wireless routers to students who would otherwise not have Internet access from their homes. The wireless router alone will not get a student connected, so the school must also subscribe to a provider for a student using such routers.

The technology coordinator stated the district has them "in very limited numbers," having only initially purchased 19 of the routers, which he said "were not cheap. We didn't want to go over (having) 20 (on-hand) if we didn't have to." He further emphasized these routers were not for families who have slow Internet, but for those who have no Internet.