Kingsport school board OKs buying 1,300 student Chromebooks

KINGSPORT — New Chromebooks for sixth and ninth graders are coming to Kingsport City Schools, costing almost $523,000 for 1,300 devices and their required Google licensing. The Board of Education voted 5-0 to approve the purchase in a called meeting Tuesday evening, before the regularly scheduled non-voting work session. The Dell Chromebook 11 machines will cost $370 each and the Google Chrome licenses, Dell Marketing L.P., $32.07 each. The purchase will use Contract C000000381302, the Wilson County Schools Cooperative Purchasing Agreement. Funding will be from School General Purpose Funds. Chief Technology Officer Andy Arnold and Chief Finance Officer David Frye recommended the contract purchase. Frye told the school board the timing of the called meeting is important because the prices fluctuate. The guaranteed contract price is only good until Feb. 3, which is when the Kingsport Board of Mayor and Aldermen is set to approve the purchase and thus finalize it. Arnold and Frye said KCS benefits from such cooperative purchasing contracts. In a memo to the school board and Superintendent Chris Hampton, they wrote that the cooperative contracts result in competitive pricing and the products have already gone through the procurement process of the lead agency. "Utilizing cooperative procurement agreements often leads to increased efficiency by decreasing the amount of time it takes from requisition entry to product receipt," the memo, dated Tuesday, said. WORK SESSION During the work session that followed the called meeting, the board was honored by the marking of Tennessee's School Board Appreciation Week, which is Jan. 25-31. Assistant Superintendent of Administration Andy True said the public doesn't always see the advocacy, presence and guidance the school board members provide the school district aside from mandated duties such as employing the superintendent, granting teacher tenure, passing a budget and adopting policies. Board members also learned from True about this year's books donated in honor of board members across the school system. The pre-kindergarten one was "Hello Goodbye Dog" by Maria Gianferrari, while the elementary choice was "Rain and the Reading Horse" also by Gianferrari. The middle school book was "The Trouble with Heroes" by Kate Messner and the high school one "The Swans of Harlem" by Karen Valby. Board President Brandon Fletcher, a five-year board member seeking a second term, said serving the community and neighbors is a privilege best done humbly. In addition, Superintendent Chris Hampton thanked the board for its service and also thanked "essential" hourly employees for working Monday and Tuesday on snow and ice removal so city schools could reopen Wednesday. "We're able to be in school tomorrow because they've taken care of our parking lots and sidewalks," Hampton said, adding that Kingsport Public Works also deserves accolades for clearing streets for the same reason. Some Northeast Tennessee public schools were still scheduled to be closed Wednesday following a winter storm that hit late in the weekend, and Hampton said only one was open statewide Tuesday, on a two-hour delay, following the closures of all public schools in the state Monday.