$23 million worth of tech devices have gone missing in Chicago’s public schools. This discovery came to light after the release of the Inspector General of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) annual report.
The report exposed gross negligence and a disturbing level of unseriousness in the handling and supervising of public property. In a sector heavily burdened by a shortage of funds, throwing such an amount of property away is indefensible.
The report’s findings showed that students failed to return 77,505 laptops and other electronic devices in a school year. This becomes more worrisome because the districts splashed millions of dollars on tracking equipment yearly. The CPS, therefore, emphasized the need to ensure compliance with board policies and streamline tracking resources.
Every device lost is an additional expense for the government and, by extension, a waste of taxpayers’ money. For example, in the 2021-2022 school year, the CPS spent over $120 million on technology.
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“At three dozen schools, 100 percent of tech devices assigned specifically to students were marked lost or stolen,” the report stated. In the district, 27% of the devices were also marked lost or stolen.
This means that more than one in every four devices went out of the radar. The CPS finds this level of loss pretty scandalous.
“In a District of our size, some device loss is expected,” the report conceded. “But we remain concerned about the loss of any public assets,” it maintained. Even more disappointing was the discovery that the CPS wasn’t utilizing the multimillion-dollar tracking system to recover the lost devices.
“The district spends about two and a half million dollars on software that’s meant to track and locate devices, but the district just wasn’t using that software,” said CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher.
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The monumental losses are scary when you factor in the anticipated drop in funding for the district’s public school system. After 2015, the district will no longer enjoy pandemic funds and federal aid.
Erykah Nava, a concerned citizen and a staff member of Raise Your Hand, a parent advocacy group, said that her organization monitors the situation.
“What stood out is just the overall efficiency and lack of transparency around money – especially when we’re facing a huge budget deficit at the end of this year,” she said.
Nava hopes that the IG’s report will not just identify the problem but also solve it. She is hoping for a permanent shift in the handling of public property.
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“We hope there’s definitely a lot more consideration – not just consideration, but implementation of these recommendations,” she added.
Will Fletcher is also worried about the optics. “It’s not a good look for CPS,” he said. He expects the CPS, who have begun working on the recommendations, to save its reputation from ruin swiftly.
The recommendations include increased attention to inventory training and search techniques. The CPS was also advised to allow an amnesty plan which will last for a certain period within which they can recover lost devices.
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