MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Shelby County School Board voted Tuesday in favor of an agenda that included a measure promoting tech for tots.
The district will buy 500 iPads for pre-K classrooms. It was part of a consent agenda in which of number of items passed unanimously.
“Of those nine Head Start centers, we don’t have any labs or most of the labs had one or two computers and possibly those were anywhere between three and five years old,” Deanna McClendon, director of Early Childhood Programs for SCS.
She said the district got many of its pre-K costs covered by a grant, freeing up federal Head Start dollars to go toward the iPads.
She said students will use the iPads for educational games and the iPads are technology that will help kids down the road when they take standardized tests on computers.
“We hear a lot about the TNReady assessment that’s coming. It’s online. We know that we’re having to start with keyboarding and just manipulation of computers a lot earlier,” McClendon said.
“It’s a way for us to really kind of close that digital divide that many times is present for many of our low income students,” said school board member Shante Avant, who told WREG before the vote she would be voting in favor of the new technology.
WREG asked why the money will not be used to pay to send more kids to pre-K programs.
McClendon explained funders, meaning agencies paying for the programs, determine how many kids can enroll in the programs.
She said this money would not affect that.
The district already has the $336,498.75 for the iPads and other corresponding items.