Los Angeles schools report 71 iPads are missing
9/27/2013LOS ANGELES — At least 71 iPads, including 69 from a single campus, went missing last year as the Los Angeles Unified School District tested a program intended to equip every student with one of the Apple tablets, officials said.
The lost devices are among iPads used in a 13-school trial run, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Officials told the newspaper that since the thefts, new security measures were implemented to keep track of the tablets, which cost nearly $700 apiece and are intended to be sent home with students.
“We have a very vigorous control for this rollout,” said Lt. Jose Santome of the school district’s Police Department. “We know what’s going out and deployed on every campus.”
The rollout could be delayed for a while, however. This week the district banned home use of the iPads after nearly 300 students figured out how to alter the security settings so they could surf the Web and access social media sites.
Officials were looking for ways to ensure students use the devices for school work only.
About 14,000 iPads have been distributed so far, as part of a $1 billion program aimed at putting the devices in the hands of every student in the nation’s second-largest school system.