BUFFALO, N.Y. — As reported by The Investigative Post, 8,000 laptops that Buffalo Public Schools issued to students last year have yet to be returned for needed upgrades.
With the school year set to begin next week, the district is sounding a clarion call for parents and students to get the devices back to the district's technology hub as soon as possible.
Laptops can be taken to the district's hub at 1515 South Park Avenue, which is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Laptops can also be brought in by students on the first day of school next Wednesday.
"At this point we presumed that they are still in the hands of our students, and we're cautiously optimistic that they will return when the students return to the school buildings next week when school reopens," according to Buffalo Public Schools chief technology officer Myra Burden.
Burden insists that to say the computers are "unaccounted" for would be inaccurate.
"They are accounted for because we know who those devices were assigned to," Burden said. "To our knowledge, they are still with the students, unless we're informed otherwise."
The laptops, which have yet to be returned, aren't compatible with the district's updated systems, and thus, students who have them won't be fully equipped for learning on them when school starts.
"In general, it will take us about three days to turn the device around," said Burden, while acknowledging the task will be more complicated if thousands of computers come in at the same time.
"But if we get thousands coming back in at the same time we will manage those accordingly. If we need to augment our staff with additional resources, we will turn them around as quickly as possible based on the number of resources that we can assign to this," she said.
According to a source who spoke with Investigative Post, it could take until October to complete the task.
That's why the district is urging parents and students to return the laptops for the necessary sanitizing and reprogramming as soon as possible.
Asked if there would be consequences for those who were issued laptops, but who fail to return them, Burden replied, "We will take inventory, and we have a theft-tracking software that's on the devices. We will escalate the functionality we have within that tracking software accordingly, based on what we can discern from that device not being returned."
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