Technology Refresh Plan Presentation to The Board Feb 3, 2026

Feb 15, 2026 By Tristan Longwell

Glendale Unified School District’s fleet of Google Chromebooks and staff devices are nearing end of life, according to Frank Schlueter, GUSD’s director of Educational Technology & Information Services.

Photo courtesy Glendale Unified School District / The GUSD Board of Education approved a districtwide “Technology Refresh Plan” on Feb. 3 to provide new Google Chromebooks for students and staff devices.

At the Feb. 3 Board of Education meeting, GUSD unanimously approved an annual “Technology Refresh Plan,” which will provide a total of 33,600 new Chromebooks and staff devices between school years 2026-27 through 2029-30.

The plan authorizes $3 million in ongoing annual funding to support the replacement of approximately 6,400 student Chromebooks and 300 staff computers per year, according to a district report. The funding would also provide a one-time allocation of $3.3 million from the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant as a “jumpstart” to provide approximately 8,000 additional student Chromebooks and 250 staff computers for 2026-27.

With the jump-start funds, all students from fourth through eighth grade will receive new Chromebooks in the year 2026-27 and available refurbished devices will move to grades K–3 and 10-12, according to Schlueter’s presentation.

“In the case of Chromebooks, when devices no longer get Google support, they become a cybersecurity risk, and there’s a significant increase in repair for the devices, and over time, they become less and less compatible with the applications that we use. There currently is no replacement or sustainable plan for devices, and any risk of not taking action would cause inconsistent student access and create inequity across grade levels,” Schlueter said during a presentation to the board at its Jan. 20 meeting.

Schlueter said GUSD started purchasing Chromebooks in the 2013-14 school year using onetime money. By 2017, Schlueter said the board approved a “technology sustainability plan” that supported the 10,000 chromebooks in GUSD’s inventory and an LCAP goal for a three-students to-one computer ratio.

The plan, Schlueter added, provided nearly $1.2 million annually for Chromebooks and staff computers, with the first three years being supported by one-time funds of $3.6 million from 2017-18. The COVID-19 pandemic, Schlueter said, caused several changes, one being the reliance on one-to-one devices, which prompted the purchase of “quite a few” Chromebooks.

A onetime emergency connectivity fund supported the purchase of 18,000 Chromebooks during the pandemic. PTA Foundation and school site funds were also used to buy Chromebooks.

“The result is that post-pandemic, we did not continue the sustainability plan. The inventory, which was very much under control prior to the pandemic, became decentralized, and we were no longer in control of our inventory, largely due to the requirement of moving Chromebooks during the pandemic from one site to another, checking them out. Sometimes the checkouts were logged in inventory, sometimes not,” Schlueter said, explaining that a technology systems assessment performed a few months ago recommended GUSD adopt a new sustainability or technology refresh plan.

Currently, according to Schlueter’s presentation, GUSD has 44,827 Chromebooks in its inventory, with 5,812 that are inactive and over 2,200 that are pending repairs.

The “cliff” Schlueter said GUSD must address by June 2029 is that 38,000 of the district’s Chromebooks will be inactive or unable to update.

Based on feedback received from a survey, Schlueter said elementary school teachers are saying Chromebooks are incredibly important and frequently used in the classroom, adding that there’s a need for equity with athome access to the devices.

The current GUSD staff computer inventory stands at 2,249, with up to 1,096 that require replacement immediately and 694 by 2028-29, the presentation stated.

Out of the $3 million being allocated annually through the technology refresh plan, Schlueter said $360,000 will go toward staff computers, plus $300,000 for supplies and to hire two full-time equivalent educational and technology information services technicians, so Chromebooks can be repaired in-house.

The plan will provide new Chromebooks to students in the fourth grade to carry through middle school and in ninth grade to keep through their senior year. Schlueter said around 2,400 Chromebooks will be provided to K-3 students annually, as well.

“This option provides Chromebooks at fourth grade, because that’s where students become responsible enough to carry the Chromebooks back and forth, and at ninth grade, because we think it’s important for when students enter high school, they receive a Chromebook and they know that they’re being supported, and we want to help them with their success,” Schlueter said.

Chromebooks would be collected in the eighth grade and 12th grade, with some being refurbished and brought back to grades K-3 and 10-12 in 2026-27 where needed, the presentation states.

“We will coordinate the logistics behind the distribution and the management of all of those Chromebooks have an improved inventory control, and we will create a tech committee that will manage navigate this plan,” Schlueter said, adding that staff plans on creating a technology plan that focuses on curriculum alignment, AI and other areas.

Board President Ingrid Gunnell said some parents who spoke at past board meetings expressed their concerns regarding technology use, especially with younger children and asked if there was “any appetite amongst teachers and families” to not allow K-3 to have Chromebooks.

Kelly King, assistant superintendent of educational services, said GUSD teachers use the Chromebooks as a tool in their classroom and families use them at home for access to tools like Amira and iReady for tutoring, but that the district could work to create alternative assignments that are not technology based.

“I think a lot of it’s education ... making sure that the teachers are not overly assigning a tech-based environment for homework and at home and in the classroom, as well as education for the families of making sure that they understand the power of putting a book in the child’s hands, going to the library, not handing them a phone or another device that they’re using. It’s not about us providing a Chromebook,” King said.