NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — Thousands of New York City schoolchildren waited months for iPads due to the city’s mismanaged rollout of remote learning equipment, according to a new audit released by Comptroller Scott Stringer on Wednesday.
The report accuses the Department of Education of failing to properly track the requests and distribution of the expensive tablets, leaving potentially leaving some students without the means to attend class.
“We know firsthand how the COVID-19 pandemic and remote learning were a daily struggle for our children...For over a year these remote learning devices were the only link any of our children had to their classmates, their teachers and their lessons,” Stringer said at a news conference with parents.
The report found 19,425 student requests for tablets were still either “under review” or “unresolved” by the time the audit concluded, on March 25. Of those requests, more than 16,000 were made in 2020. Meanwhile, the DOE mistakenly sent more than one device to at least 3,045 students, according to the audit.
Overseeing more than a million primary and secondary students, the DOE has spent roughly $287 million on 500,000 iPads for remote learning since the 2019-2020 school year. Stringer criticized the DOE for not keeping proper tabs on its tablets, saying the agency lacked a centralized tracking system for the iPads, which are loaned to students.
DOE spokesperson Sarah Casasnovas slammed the report for relying on “outdated information.” Of the 16,000 unfulfilled tablet requests from 2020, 85 percent were either already fulfilled or not needed by the time of audit’s completion, she said.
“This is an audit in search of a problem based on outdated information,” Casasnovas said in a statement.
“We did what no other school district was able to do – distributing half a million devices to students in need during a pandemic,” she went on.
“The requests identified in the Comptroller’s audit were resolved, there are zero unfulfilled device requests, and we continue to fulfill devices requests quickly as needed.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the audit’s information could have been outdated because the DOE was loaning out iPads “constantly” during the school year.
“By the time we got through the whole school year, over half a million devices had been given out,” de Blasio said at a Wednesday news briefing.
“I think it is missing the core point that a vast and historic number of devices were given out for free and constantly,” the mayor went on. “We're going into this new school year in a strong position. And we added money in the budget to get even more, just to make sure it was absolutely universal.”