Los Angeles Unified Superintendent John Deasy will answer questions about the district’s controversial iPad project during an hour-long live call-in television show slated to air Thursday at 6 p.m. on the district’s public station, KLCS. (Check your local cable listings for specific channel.)
The public can call in to 800-527-8839 during the telecast or email questions in advance to cctp@lausd.net.
In addition to Deasy, the show will feature Bernadette Lucas, director of the district’s Common Core Technology Project; Shahryar Khazei, deputy chief information officer; and LAUSD police Lt. Jose Santome.
The district has distributed iPads to student at 47 schools this year in the first phase of a plan to provide the tablet computers to all 600,000 students by this time next year.
The plan hit a snag last month when students at three high schools managed to breach security measures and access unauthorized websites, including Facebook and YouTube. Deasy immediately ordered that students were no longer allowed to take the iPads home until the security issue had been resolved.
Some schools are now scrambling to figure out the logistics of distributing and securely storing the iPads on a daily basis.
Roosevelt High, for instance, has temporarily halted the use of iPads as it reviews its options. While it’s time-consuming to distribute and collect iPads for each class, there are also drawbacks to giving them out and getting them back at the beginning and end of each day, officials said.
“Roosevelt is a very old campus, and some of the classrooms are on the third floor,” said Roosevelt High spokesman Patrick Sinclair. “How do we get the iPad carts there?
“What are the protocols for handing them out on a daily basis? What are the protocols for athletes, who don’t have an end-of-the-day class where they can turn them in?”
Sinclair added that there are concerns about storing the iPads in classrooms overnight, since some of the classrooms don’t have bars on the windows and are easy targets for vandals.
“We are working with the school and with the district to get security concerns and protocols answered.”
By Barbara Jones, Los Angeles Daily News
Photo: LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy looks on as students learn to use their new iPads at Chavez Learning Academy in San Fernando on Sept. 12, 2013. John Deasy will answer questions about the district’s controversial iPad project during a live call-in television show slated to air Thursday, Oct. 3. (Andy Holzman/Los Angeles Daily News)
Source publication: Los Angeles Daily News