Horry Board of Education reassured about future PDL rollouts

The Horry County Board of Education said Monday they still are considering deploying digital devices to elementary school students, while they also were assured Monday night that next year’s redistribution of devices to middle and high school students will be smoother than the initial distributions.

The devices were discussed Monday during the school board’s first budget retreat for 2014-15.

Horry County School District officials recommended expanding the Personalized Digital Learning next year to every student in grades three, four and five, and Chief Accountability Officer Edward Boyd said there’s enough district staff to help the redistribution at middle and high schools and with initial distribution at the elementary schools.

Boyd said district staff asked teachers in grades 3 to 5 what digital device they would prefer in the classroom, and 59 percent asked for Apple iPads. He said Apple has agreed to help children register with “Under 13” accounts. Middle school children had trouble registering after the devices they were issued in the 2012-13 school year because they were younger than 13 years old, said Boyd. He said decisions about repairs and insurance for elementary devices haven’t yet been made.

Janice Morreale, District 5 representative, said she supports the PDL initiative in middle and high schools, but says she doesn’t know where she stands on giving elementary-aged children devices. Morreale said the issues middle schools have faced, including broken devices and registration problems, make her hesitant to distribute iPads to younger grades.

The lack of staff available during device distribution last August also frustrates Morreale at middle schools, she said. She said when the devices were redistributed at high schools, less staff was available to distribute them in middle schools.

“The middle schools were left behind when the devices rolled out to high schools,” she said.

Horry County Schools officials hope that help from technology giant Dell will make the next redistribution better.

Dell has agreed to replace all 12,000 Dell Venue tablets and keyboards at no additional cost to the district and to supply the manpower needed to redistribute the devices in all Horry County high schools.

“The issues we had with the Dell Venues have been well-documented,” Boyd said. “Dell finally got to the point where they said the devices they gave us were not reaching their standards.”

The board is planning to vote on expanding the PDL to elementary schools at their next meeting on Monday, Feb. 23.

Funding for the PDL initiative was approved in June 2013 by the school board, and uses penny sales tax revenue to fund the $7.8 million needed among all the schools.

The district began working Monday to develop the 2015-16 budget, but some funds must await approval from the state.

The district expects a surplus of $5.2 million this year due to vacancies and about $9.5 million in new revenue for the next school year, said John Gardner, chief financial officer for the district.

The board discussed allocating funds for more staff due to the influx of at least 1,200 new students.

Last year, the district planned for 884 new students but experienced an actual increase of 1,213 students, so in its next budget the district wants $5 million from the general fund to hire more teachers, administrators and staff.

District officials also suggested giving a 2 percent raise to every employee who is not eligible for a STEP increase, which is a raise based on an employee’s years of experience. About 26 percent of district’s staff is not eligible for a STEP increase and have not received raises since 2012, Gardner said.

Daryl Brown, executive director of student affairs, asked the board for money to purchase new school buses. Some of the buses date back to 1987, he said.

The bus funds come from a 10-per-year replacement cycle approved by the board last year. By the end of the 2015 school year, Horry County Schools should have at least 20 new buses, Gardner said.

Horry County Schools also is anticipating several fixed-cost item increases, such as property insurance and copier leases, Gardner said. These increases would take about $250,000 from the 2014-15 general fund.

This story was originally published February 9, 2015 at 11:07 PM with the headline "Horry Board of Education reassured about future PDL rollouts."