School in Passaic turns a page with Samsung

NEW JERSEY, USA: Passaic City Public Schools and Samsung Electronics America, Inc., announced the deployment of Samsung's Chromebook 550 to all district students across grades seven though 12 in a 1:1 computing program aimed at providing the district’s educators and students with the technology and resources needed to bridge the digital divide.

In a phased deployment, Passaic City Public Schools is rolling out 5,000 of the innovative thin-client laptop devices that operate on Google’s Chrome operating system, making it one of the largest K-12 Chromebook deployments in the United States, as per the announcement shared.

“This 1:1 initiative with Samsung Chromebooks is the culmination of many years of planning aimed at realizing our goal of narrowing the digital divide for our student population,” said Passaic City Public Schools Interim Superintendent Dr. Lawrence Everett.

“With access to Samsung Chromebooks every day and all day at school, and also in their homes from later this year, Passaic students will now have much greater opportunities to obtain the 21st century skills that are so essential to success once they graduate and enter the workforce or college.” “Samsung believes in the potential for technology to transform the K-12 learning environment, and we are focused on providing school districts with solutions to enhance student engagement and empower teachers,” said Tod Pike, senior vice president at Samsung Electronics America’s Enterprise Business Division.

“We’re excited that Passaic City Public Schools chose Samsung Chromebooks for this important project that will open up new opportunities for its students to learn in a more collaborative, rich and globally engaged way.”

Passaic City Public Schools is an urban district with 14,500 students located in northern New Jersey just 12 miles from New York City.

A study by IDC showed that, in comparison to a traditional PC, Chromebooks reduced total ownership costs per device by up to $935 over a three-year period. “In the past, if you were to deploy 5,000 laptops, you’d have to image them, keep all software updated and perform maintenance on a regular basis, putting a significant strain on IT resources,” said Joshua Koen, Director of Information Technology for Passaic City Schools. “With the Samsung Chromebooks, when we want to deploy a new app or update, we just add it to the management console and it applies to all 5,000. The bottom line is, this massive deployment would simply not have been possible for Passaic City Schools with any other device.”

In preparation for the deployment, as the announcement adds, Passaic City Schools has also undertaken an overhaul of its infrastructure, making Wi-Fi available for the first time throughout all its 16 schools. From fall 2013, students will also be able to take their Chromebooks home each day and the district has plans to install directional access points on the roofs of its school buildings to provide Internet for students who lack broadband at home.