Matthew DeMarco's 12-year-old son, Anthony, may start the school year without his own school-provided computer.
Photo: Matthew DeMarcoTens of thousands of students across the U.S. are facing the prospect of starting school over the coming weeks without the computers needed for remote classes.
In districts across the country, including in Florida, Texas, New Jersey, Missouri, Nevada and Alabama, school leaders purchased scores of devices months ago to prepare for at-home schooling after struggling to manage through closures during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now many of those shipments have been delayed amid strong demand and other supply-chain disruptions, forcing schools to scramble for alternatives such as adapting educational tools for use on mobile phones or possibly handing devices only to those who don’t have access to any device at home. In certain locations, school administrators say they are unsure whether they will be able to guarantee all students will have laptops or tablets by the start of the school year, according to education officials.
Some school districts prepared early or already had access to enough devices before the pandemic and say they will be able to meet student needs. But others that placed orders within the last few months are facing extended delays that could make remote learning more challenging for students who don’t have devices in the home.
The situation is made worse by a growing shortage in the consumer market of Chromebooks. Chromebooks are popular low-cost laptops running software built by Alphabet Inc.’s Google. The tight supply is driven by demand some manufacturers say is historic because of increases in at-home work and parents who are choosing to buy laptops to ensure their children are prepared.
A student carried a Chromebook during a school-supply distribution event in Los Angeles last week.
Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg News“It’s been highly frustrating,” said Matthew DeMarco, a 41-year-old father in Tallahassee, Fla., who found out a few weeks ago his 12-year-old son may not have a laptop in time for next week’s start of the school year.
The school offered a used desktop as a stopgap measure, but it also hasn’t arrived. “It’s hard to believe that we’re only five, six, or seven days away [and] we’re still discussing, will we have this or that,” the computer programmer said in an interview.
Supply-chain challenges due to the pandemic have hobbled device makers for months.
“Nobody could have planned for the incredible upside and demand between work from home and virtual students,” said Gregg Prendergast, the president of Acer Inc.’s operations in North and South America. “A combination of supply-chain disruption, a lot of money from government stimulus, and schools all moving to distance learning” created a perfect storm for tight supply, he added.
Only about 16% of the laptop models under $500 are available at Best Buy Co., although availability is higher in some online marketplaces, according to Panjiva, a supply-chain analytics unit at S&P Global Market Intelligence. That comes as seaborne U.S. imports of computers surged by more than 50% in July from a year earlier, according to Panjiva.
The shortages will exacerbate inequality among well-off students and less advantaged ones, said Tammy Hershfield, founder and board chair of Computers 2 Kids, a San Diego nonprofit that provides refurbished computers free or at discounted prices to children and organizations in need.
A number of school districts have been told the delays are linked to U.S. sanctions brought last month against Chinese manufacturing companies with alleged human rights abuses. The Commerce Department imposed sanctions on 11 Chinese companies, some of which supply laptop components.
Chromebooks were loaded onto a truck for delivery to Philadelphia district schools in April.
Photo: Jessica Griffin/Associated PressShortly after, Hong Kong-based Lenovo Group Ltd. sent a letter to several school districts saying that one of its educational computer suppliers was among those companies, according to a copy of the letter seen by The Wall Street Journal, in which the device maker warned that shipments could be delayed by five to six weeks.
A Commerce Department spokesman said Lenovo shipments weren’t blocked. The government’s action, he said, didn’t bar computer imports but restricted U.S. companies from dealing with foreigners in some cases. “Lenovo should have also known it is supplying computers to American school children that could have been produced from forced labor,” the spokesman said. A Lenovo spokesman declined to comment.
Leon County Schools, a school district in Tallahassee that serves over 34,000 students according to its website, ordered 32,500 laptops on June 2. They won’t arrive in time for the start of the school year with students scheduled to return Aug. 31, a district spokesman said. Instead, the district will make some of the school system’s computers available to families that lack devices at home until the laptop orders arrive, the spokesman said, adding that there are enough devices to equip all students.
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Houston Independent School District, which serves around 210,000 students, ordered 40,000 computers over the summer after realizing that an initial purchase of 35,000 wasn’t enough, according to Scott Gilhousen, the district’s chief information officer. The latest batch, though, won’t arrive in time for the Sept. 8 start of the school year, he said. They are expected, at the earliest, in the third week of September, Mr. Gilhousen said.
“If a student does not have a device or internet access, they’re going to have to go to a learning center,” Mr. Gilhousen said. Those are often located at schools.
Parents with the money to purchase computers for their children have been able to turn to the retail market, but Mr. Prendergast, the Acer executive, said inventory for even pricier laptops is somewhat limited. Schools, however, often cannot purchase laptops and tablets in bulk from main street retailers. A spokesman for Paterson Public Schools, a school district based in Paterson, N.J., suffering from delayed shipments, said that buying the equipment from retailers wasn’t an option because they often limit how many a single consumer can purchase.
Off-the-shelf laptops also often lack the features required by younger students, Mr. Prendergast said. Laptops designed for school-use generally are built to be more robust. “Retail models are typically not built to be an education device, so they don’t have those rugged features,” he said.
Mr. DeMarco, whose son is still waiting for a computer, said he may have to set aside his own work to give his child access to his machine. “If the school year started and things aren’t here, whatever stuff I have to put aside so that he could do his schoolwork—if that meant me not doing my work—I would do that.”
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