PENDER COUNTY — The Pender County Schools Board of Education approved buying 2,000 new laptops for a bit more than it hoped on Friday.
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The board was asked to sign off on about $708,700 on Tuesday, but a motion to approve the money failed without a second. The figure was technically the lowest qualified bid, as two lower offers refused to commit to pricing because of concerns about tariff threats emanating from the White House.
Pender County Director of Technology Services Loren Macon told the board Tuesday the recommended vendor was CDW-G, the government division of I.T. giant CDW. The two lower bidders would not honor their prices through the Tuesday meeting. The bids opened on Feb. 25.
“They can’t lock in a price with us for more than 20 days?” board member Jason Spivey asked incredulously.
When Vice Chair Don Hall asked if any of the bids were “substantially cheaper,” Macon replied they were not, with the high-end bids ranging up to about $1.5 million and the lower ones within $40,000.
“I would love to vote no, but it’s not your fault,” Hall said.
Hall never had to vote no. Chair Beth Burns asked for a motion on the issue and member Tom Reeves moved to accept the bid. Hall and Spivey fell silent, and member Jennifer Hanson was absent. With no second to consider the motion, it failed.
A couple minutes later, as the board was preparing to move on from the technology section of the meeting without making a decision, Reeves asked how long the price would be good on the laptops. Macon said it would not hold through April 2, the date reciprocal tariffs President Donald Trump has threatened to levy against United States trading partners are set to go into effect.
Hall asked Macon to “stick around” at the meeting because the board may change course later. The meeting continued for another two hours, mostly in closed session, but the board did not revisit the issue before adjourning. Instead it was scheduled for a special virtual meeting on Friday.
There, Hall said the district is “held hostage” to replace the devices because the district is required to have them for testing. This wave of laptops is being phased out after five years because software updates for the devices are ending.
During the call, Breedlove told the board the district has made an effort to reduce screen time over the past two years, but the laptops are a critical part of classrooms even though they are only used for about 10% of instructional time for elementary students. He noted the use of computers increases as students progress to middle and high school, used for everything from research to note-taking. He added the district needs laptops for remote learning.
As a former substitute for the district, Hansen said she sees the devices as essential for staff to use for planning and professional development outside the classroom as well.
Every district in the state boosted their device adoption with the help of Covid-19 relief funding for years, but that well has run dry and now they have no easy way to pay for them.
Last year Google promised 10 years of software updates for devices released in 2021 onward, but at the February meeting when county commissioners signed off on money for the laptops, Superintendent Breedlove said the district is moving to a seven-year cycle to keep laptops longer and “is about as far of a stretch as we can do” and keep the computers working.
The board approved the contract unanimously.
The district used $700,000 in local funding for most of the buy and $8,670 in state money to cover the difference.
