Coachella School District First to Deploy iPad® Devices 1:1 to All Students and Teachers in Pre-K Through 12th Grade
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Coachella School District First to Deploy iPad® Devices 1:1 to All Students and Teachers in Pre-K Through 12th Grade
District Partnered with LocknCharge to Provide Charging Carts to Keep their Investment of More Than 20,000 iPad Devices Safe, Ready to Use, and Easily Accessible in Class
PALM SPRINGS, CA, June 2, 2015 – Coachella Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) took a giant technology leap forward in the 2013-2014 school year leading the nation as 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 simultaneously to ensure that those 20,000 devices would be protected and fully utilized by teachers and students once available. CVUSD Superintendent Darryl Adams’ initiative to change the future and improve college readiness for his students with the 1:1 iPad deployment was so impactful, he 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 and he knew that they were not prepared for success after high school. His vision was of leveling the playing field for all of his students with technology to transform the district into a 21st Century model. 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.
The passing of a $42 million technology bond in 2013 was a game changer for the District, signaling that the District and community were making a true investment in the future of their students. It made the 1:1 iPad technology investment for every student and teacher achievable. Preparing their students for college, career and citizenship was a core tenant of Adam’s initiative and there was no roadmap for how to accomplish this. It had never been done before.
“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. We looked at a lot of different carts and by far the LocknCharge Cart was the most secure.”
“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. The President recognized that innovative approach we have. For the community, it really validated what we were doing and for our partners who have helped us get here, like LocknCharge, it validates for all of us that we’re on the right path. We’re doing the right thing to educate our students.”
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, knowing that the impossible is possible with hard work and collaboration. 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 Michelle Murphy, Executive Director of Technology Services at CVUSD. “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.”
Deployment Plan
Once CVUSD decided to go with iPad devices, this led the team to find the best partners in the industry to assure the pilot and deployment went smoothly. The project plan included sourcing everything from iPad cases to security software to syncing technology to finding a way to secure and charge their devices. Everything was standardized to make the deployment go smoothly.
The criteria for selecting vendors was stringent. They needed to be hyper-responsive to the district’s needs as they flowed through the stages of deployment, provide expertise in deployments and assure the lofty investment the district was making in devices was protected and fully utilized once deployed.
LocknCharge met with CVUSD in the summer prior to the pilot deployment to showcase the EVO 40 Cart, a solution that secures and charges 40 iPad devices and features Baskets to easily deploy devices in a classroom. The CVUSD team quickly realized that the quality of the Cart, the speed to wire and set up the Cart and the Basket ecosystem were unlike anything they’d seen to date. It is extremely secure and, with the two side-opening doors, offers multiple access points to the devices within a classroom.
Implementation
The EVO 40 Cart solves the problem of storing, charging and protecting iPad devices in schools. CVUSD teachers worried about how they would charge and manage 25 to 30 iPad devices in each classroom, but the rolling, high-quality steel Cart makes organizing and charging mobile devices in the classroom simple, taking that weight off of their shoulders. The Cart eases and speeds up device distribution and sharing through the ergonomic Baskets by LocknCharge. 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.
“Teachers were complaining about how fast you could get the devices out and in every day,” said Murphy. “And the baskets. They absolutely love the baskets! Instead of needing 30 kids to go to the cart, you only need four or even two. So it helped get to instruction quicker.”
A three-minute video about CVUSD’s story, featuring interviews with Adams and Murphy is posted at https://www.lockncharge.com/coachella-valley-unified-school-district-case-study/.
