Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD)in the 2013-2014 school year became the first district to deploy iPads® in Pre-K through 12th grade to students and teachers. The District chose LocknCharge’s EVO 40 Carts™ to deploy and to ensure that those 20,000 devices would be protected during and after use. CVUSD Superintendent Darryl Adams was recognized by President Obama as one of the top 100 most innovative superintendents last fall.
When Adams came to the District, only 16% of CVUSD students who went on to college were graduating. With a student population of 19,500 spread out over 22 schools, CVUSD is challenged as one of the poorest school districts in the United States, with 90% qualifying for free or reduced cost lunches and with a population that is 97% Hispanic.
“When we learned about LocknCharge and what they offered, we knew it was the ultimate solution to ensure the devices were taken care of and protected,” said Darryl Adams, Superintendent of Coachella Valley Unified School District. “Devices would be charged and ready to go every day the student came to school.”
Michelle Murphy, Executive Director of Technology Services, led the technology team of the CVUSD iCenter, in creating a plan on how to provide 18,000 iPad® devices in their first year of deployment. The first step was securing funding, through a $42 million technology bond to upgrade digital infrastructure increasing Wi-Fi access points and bandwidth, as well as to purchase the devices. To prove to voters that this bond was worth passing, the district established an iPad deployment pilot.
“In the beginning, there was no roadmap. So it wasn’t like you could call someone to say, hey, how do you do this?“ said Murphy. “So we worked strategically with some of our partners. We really wanted to know, ‘How do we charge the devices? How do we protect the devices? How do we get them to sites and into the hands of students?’ So LocknCharge demonstrated the carts for us and what was most important was ease of use in the classroom and keeping them secure and charged at the same time."
“No iPads have been stolen since they have been in the Carts! We had one break in. They tried to get into the Cart, but did not succeed.”
CVUSD teachers worried about how they would charge and manage 25 to 30 iPad devices in each classroom. The cart includes eight removable baskets that hold up to five devices each and is designed to enable several people to access it at once.
“They absolutely love the baskets!” said Murphy. “Instead of needing 30 kids to go to the cart, you only need four or even two. So it helped get to instruction quicker.”
“When President Obama brought the top 100 most innovative superintendents to D.C., including myself, it was a great pride that I felt representing this community," said Superintendent Adams. "The President recognized that innovative approach we have. For the community, it really validated what we were doing.”
