SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – U.S. schools face shortages and long delays, up to several months, to get the most out of back-to-school materials this year: laptops and other devices needed for online learning, associated Press research found.
The world’s 3 largest IT corporations, Lenovo, HP, and Dell, told school districts that they lacked nearly five million laptops, in some cases exacerbated by the Trump administration’s sanctions opposed to Chinese providers, according to interviews with more than two dozen U.S. schools and districts. . Five states, suppliers, IT corporations and industry analysts.
As the year begins almost in many places due to coronavirus, educators across the country are concerned that computer shortages exude inequality and headaches for students, families, and teachers.
“It will be like asking an artist to paint a portrait without a portrait. A child cannot be allowed to learn remotely without a computer,” said Tom Baumgarten, superintendent of the Morongo Unified School District in California’s Mojave Desert, where the 8,000 students are eligible for a loose lunch and want computers for distance learning.
Baumgarten was about to order 5,000 Lenovo Chromebooks in July when its supplier canceled it, claiming that Lenovos “was arrested through a government company due to a Chinese component that is not allowed here,” he said. He switched to HP and told them they would arrive in time for the first day of school on August 26. The delivery date was replaced in September and then October. The community has about 4,000 old laptops that can serve a portion of students, but what about the rest,” Baumgarten asks rhetorically. “I’m very worried I won’t be able to offer a computer to everyone.”
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Chromebooks and other cheap PCs are the computers of choice for high-budget schools. Delays began in the spring and intensified due to major supply chain and source outages, with the same reasons why toilet paper and other pandemic essential products flew off the shelves a few months ago. Then came the Trump administration’s July 20 announcement to Chinese corporations that he said were concerned about forced hard work or other human rights violations opposed to a Muslim minority, the Uighurs. Commerce has imposed sanctions on 11 Chinese corporations, adding to the manufacturer of several Lenovo computer models, which the company says will charge several weeks to existing delays, according to a letter Lenovo sent to customers.
School districts are imploring Trump’s management to solve the problem, saying learning remotely from a computer will be like no learning for some of the country’s most vulnerable students.
“This is a complicated consultation because I can’t stand the hard work of children’s slaves for computers, but can’t we hurt more young people in the process?” said Matt Bartenhagen, IT Director at Williston Public Schools in North Dakota, a district of 4,600 people waiting for an order for Lenovo’s 2,000 Chromebooks. “They were due to be delivered in July. Then in August. Then, at the end of August. The current shipping estimate is ” hopefully “until the end of the year.
The Denver Public Schools District, Colorado’s largest, expects orders from 12,500 Lenovo Chromebooks in April and May. The district has struggled to locate machines, adapted to everything you can have, and distributes everything it has to offer to the academics who need them. However, when the school starts on Wednesday, about 3,000 devices will lose, said Lara Hussain, the district’s IT director.
“They promised us devices. Our students want devices. And because they don’t get devices, students starting the school year won’t be able to participate. This is unacceptable,” Hussain said.
Lenovo had notified Denver and other districts in the spring and summer of source chain delays. Last July, Lenovo sent a letter to consumers saying that “trade controls” announced through Commerce would cause an additional slowdown of at least several weeks.
“This delay is a new progression and has nothing to do with the source limitations reported in the past,” Matthew Zielinski, president of Lenovo North America, said in the letter, referring to sanctions imposed on a Chinese supplier, Hefei Bitland Information. Technology Co. Ltd. indexed 23 Lenovo models for education and companies manufactured through Bitland.
“As of now, we no longer produce those devices in Bitland,” the letter says, adding that Lenovo is running a “transition plan” to move production to sites.
A Lenovo official told the California Department of Education that the company had an accumulation of more than 3 million Chromebooks, said Daniel Thigpen, the department’s spokesman.
Lenovo refused to respond to repeated AP messages to download confirmation of accumulation and main points of the number of delayed devices, responding only to rejecting one on the seizure of computers through U.S. Customs, as reported through vendors to some schools.
U.S. government agencies said they knew where the computers were and also denied that computers were seized.
“WE. Customs and Border Protection has no indication of detained laptops matching this description,” the firm said in a statement.
The Ministry of Commerce said it had added Hefei Bitland to its so-called list of entities, which restricts the export and transfer of parts to the country through sanctioned companies. “This does not apply to the importation of Chromebooks from China,” the branch said in a statement, adding that “we deserve everyone to agree that American schoolchildren deserve not to use Chinese computers produced from forced labor.”
There is no national count of the number of laptops and other devices schools expect. The Associated Press found that some of the largest school districts in the United States are among those with notable orders from Chromebooks, other laptops, or Internet points, adding Los Angeles, Clark County, Nevada, Wake County, North Carolina, Houston, Palm Beach, and Hawaii, the only school district in the country.
A recent survey of California’s 1,100 districts showed that states are expecting at least 300,000 computers late, said Mary Nicely, senior policy adviser to the state’s chief executive. An Alabama survey found that about 20 were waiting on 33,000 computers, said Ryan Hollingsworth, Alabama’s director of school superintendents.
Smaller districts in Montana, New York, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, New Hampshire and elsewhere are also waiting for computer orders, with delivery dates that have mobile targets.
Some school districts, such as Los Angeles, say that notable orders are for replacement devices and that all students who want a computer will have it. Many districts ask parents how to install appliances for their children, but they realize that this is not an option for many families.
It’s also not an easy task as materials are running out at retail advertising outlets. Best Buy introduces 36 new and used Chromebook models for less than $500, low-priced models that are popular with students. As of this week, 33 of those models sold out.
The delay and delays have spread so far that some academics will be forced to start the semester without a generation essential for distance learning, said Michael Flood, Kajeet’s senior vice president, who works with more than 2,000 school districts in the United States. canada.
Some school principals told Flood that their computer providers and Chromebook expected deliveries to only be delayed for about a month. But others are told that their machines may not be available until early 2021.
The shortage is due to an unusually higher demand at a time when the non-public computer industry is still recovering from pandemic precautions that close the factories of major computer vendors in China in February and March. As the source chain began to restart, new calls came from giant corporations and government agencies with large numbers of workers fleeing the house, as well as school districts struggling to protect machines, said Mikako Kitagawa, director of studies at Gartner Inc., which largely follows the PC industry.
“At the end of the day, it turns out that everyone needs a computer or a Chromebook right now and there’s only enough,” Kitagawa said. “It’s a very bad case.”
To make matters worse, many school districts underestimated their desires for spring orders, assuming that classic categories in person would resume in the fall.
In California, peak schools planned to have some form of face-to-face categories in the fall, but they didn’t do so until July, which would not be possible, when Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered most schools to start with the distance. fit. This created a crazy career for computers.
Tom Quiambao, director of generation of leaders for the Tracy Unified School District in Northern California, said he and his provider contacted HP directly to ask why his July 10,000 HP laptop order would take 3 months to deliver. He said “HP lacks 1.7 million laptop sets” due to production shortages in a variety of parts made in China, adding processors, touch screens, motherboards and others, Quiambao said.
An HP spokesperson declined to verify or deny this figure, saying that “we continue to leverage our global source chain to satisfy our customers’ conversion desires.”
Dell submitted such a summary to detailed questions about a delay.
“We can’t comment in particular on the call and supply,” Dell said in an email statement, adding that the company saw an increase in orders due to virtual learning and seeks to “process orders as successfully as possible.”
With so many consumers ordering computers at the same time, PC brands can find themselves in the awkward position of deciding who buys them first, said Linn Huang, a district analyst at the International Data Corp. company. at the end of the computer line.
That’s a component of the challenge for the central Abilene District in Texas, where 6,000 Dell Chromebooks, ordered in May and June, await, but are expected before November.
“In Texas, there are more than 1,200 school districts and they are all in charge,” district spokesman Lance Fleming said. Schools are also looking to obtain disinfectant products. “Who would have ever thought that Clorox computers and wipes would be in the same point of need in our country.”
Associated Press editors Kathleen Foody in Chicago, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Tali Arbel in New York contributed to this report.