Refreshed Devices

Yearly, students in grades 1st, 5th and 9th will receive new Chromebooks so that devices are "refreshed". This means a few minor functionality changes (no docked stylus and no world-facing camera). We would like to address some concerns below:

• We understand students have become accustomed to their original devices, but these are end-of-life.  The district cannot guarantee support for original devices due to spare parts going out of production, and accumulation of wear-and-tear.

• Utmost effort has been made to provide students with the most similar device currently available on the market (at reasonable cost and delivery time) to minimize disruption to workflow.

• Manufacturer has made changes to the model and a certain degree of adaptation will be necessary.

  • Lenovo has phased out the keyboard camera as a standard feature for this series of devices. Requesting this optional feature would add to the cost and slow down delivery even further. Most if not all functions can be performed by the main camera.

  • Lenovo has also phased out the original type of stylus.  The new version is double the price, and must be recharged.  Early reviews are poor (easily broken), and deemed unfeasible for organizational use.

    • District announced support for stylus replacement ended Sept 2022.

    • Original styluses are frequently lost and damaged;  replacement burden of new version at $40+ per unit too high for district and parents

    • Most stylus functionality can be reproduced with a cheap generic one. Here is an example at 1/6th the price of the original stylus, and can be carried with students’ pens and pencils:  https://a.co/d/5ec6iic

  • Support will be provided for any students struggling to adapt.  Requests for assistance can be made at www.bit.ly/kosdtech. 

  • The whole district will be on refreshed devices in the next couple of school years, and elementary students are already using them successfully with few to no reported issues.