CHICAGO (NewsNation) — Chicago Public Schools lost tens of thousands of school-issued technology during the 2021-22 school year, according to the district's inspector general's annual report.
The report revealed that 77,505 devices were reported lost or stolen during the school year, which included $23 million worth of laptops, hotspots, and iPads.
Between 2020-23, Chicago Public Schools spent $308 million on 311,000 laptops.
Upon further investigation, the report noted that every single device from three dozen schools was unaccounted for.
“It’s just wasteful (and) that’s what our office is here to address and that’s what we do,” CPS Inspector General Will Fletcher told NewsNation affiliate WGN-TV. “Our work uncovered an incident where there were a pair of siblings, a brother and sister at school who between them lost 9-10 devices, (and) there’s no record or indication that the district reached out to the family mentioned this was an issue try to figure out what happened.”
Additionally, the report noted that the district did little to try to track down the unaccounted-for technology. The report revealed that CPS spent about $2.6 million on software to track and recover computers, but it wasn't utilized.
“In a district of our size, some device loss is expected, but we remain concerned about the loss of any public asset," CPS said in a statement. "Our CPS team will work to streamline our system for tracking resources, including devices, while enforcing compliance with board policy. In a district where more than 72% of students are from economically disadvantaged families, it is crucial that we are sensitive to our families as we conduct any device recovery efforts.”
CPS reports it has recovered 12,000 laptops so far.
The district also estimates the current depreciated value of the devices as $2.5 million saying the majority of them are now well over five years old, stating many others were “thrown out” and marked lost.
NewsNation affiliate WGN-TV contributed to this report.