Supervisors pointed out that school board members did not have the opportunity to review those new allocations, and were reluctant to release the funding without their approval.
Assistant superintendent for Finance Terry Stone outlined how those funds would be utilized, the entirety of the requests slated to address COVID-related needs at the special meeting earlier last week.
A large portion of the funding, about $1.6 million, is slated to provide devices for students in grades K through 2, completing an effort that provides all Hanover students with laptops or other devices.
Stone said this represents an addition to the current Technology Plan, necessitated by the possibility of a return to online instruction only.
Dr. Michael Gill, superintendent, assured board members that all students currently enrolled in online instruction will have devices when school began Tuesday, Sept. 8.
But, without the purchase of the additional devices for the remaining students not covered in the original tech plan, a return to virtual education only would present challenges.
“We’ve had a shipment of Chromebooks come in, and we’re also repurposing about a thousand additional devices to make up the difference,” Gill said. “If we were to find ourselves in a position where we needed to go to remote learning, our plan calls for all of our students to learn in a remote environment. Currently, we would not be prepared to do that for our K through 2. This ( additional funding) would allow us to do that.”
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