Starting in the spring, Oswego School District 308 seniors will no longer get to keep their Chromebooks after graduation.

The district also will suspend the planned refresh of Chromebooks for fifth graders and one kindergarten through fourth-grade level.

As Oswego School District 308 Director of Technology and Infrastructure Brent Kiger told school board members at their Dec. 8 meeting, a lack of federal funding “has caused us to reevaluate how we are spending our money.”

At the same time, he said the district wants to continue to provide access to technology across the district.

“Starting this spring, we will exclusively focus on providing new devices to freshmen instead of the changes where we previously provided new devices to fifth-graders and then also cycled a grade level K-4,” Kiger said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the district started receiving federal relief grants that were used to give fifth through 12th grade students a take home device.

The system has been in place for the past several years, Kiger said. Students in kindergarten through fourth grade use classroom cart devices that are refreshed on a rotating grade-level schedule.

The district spends about $1.2 million annually to refresh devices at three grade levels.

“Now that funding is no longer available, it’s not sustainable with that model,” Kiger said.

The district is also having to deal with aging hardware. He said the devices issued during the pandemic have reached the end of their life and no longer meet performance standards.

The computers that graduating seniors return to the district will be refurbished and given to incoming students. They will also be used for repairs and assigned to fifth-grade students,

The returned eighth-grade devices will provide additional support for first to fourth grade classroom carts as necessary, he said.

By limiting the refresh cycle to a single grade level per year, the district can reduce annual spending by roughly $800,000 while accounting for a potential increase in repair costs because of the extended lifespan of the device, Kiger said.

District 308 chief financial officer and chief school business official Raphael Obafemi told board members the district’s information technology team came up with the proposal.

“I told them, ‘You know we need to do more with less,’ he said. “Can you come up with an idea that we can use, that doesn’t negatively impact the educational experience of our kids?”

Officials said the district currently has sufficient inventory to provide new teachers with devices for next year and that district will continue to follow a four-to-five-year refresh cycle for staff Chromebooks.