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Superintendent John Deasy is proposing a nearly half year-long extension in completing LA Unified’s much-ballyhooed iPad rollout, pushing back completion of the program to the end of 2015.

As originally planned, all LA Unified students were to have iPads by the spring of 2015* over three phases of distribution. If his proposal is approved by the board, iPads will rollout to the district’s 600,000 students through December 2015.

The proposed change is included in a revised distribution plan Deasy has sent to the board for consideration at a special meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 29, according to a press release from the district. The request reflects problems the district has encountered in the initial phase of distribution, which is scheduled to bring the tables to students in 47 schools through this fall.

But that rollout, representing a $30 million investment, has been marked by a series of problems, such as iPads going home with students, lost iPads and students’ bypassing security blocks to freely surf the web.

Deasy is asking that Phase 2 include distribution of tablets at up to 36 campuses by April 2014, with priority assigned to those identified by the federal Office for Civil Rights and LA Unified as having limited access to technology. This phase also provides tablets and an initial orientation to principals and certificated staff at all LAUSD schools.

Phase 3, which is scheduled from August 2014 to December 2015, will involve the distribution of tablets to 200 schools in the fall of 2014, and to an additional 250 campuses — ostensibly Phase 4 — in the spring of 2015.

The remaining schools will receive tablets in the fall of 2015.

“I am hopeful that this revised plan meets the concerns of board members over how best to provide our students with the technology they need to excel in the classroom and succeed in their careers,” Deasy said in the release.

He asked that the board act expeditiously on this request because of the introduction of computer-based state assessments in the spring of 2015. He said he hopes that the Board is prepared to vote on the plan at its regularly-scheduled meeting in December.

*Clarified timing of the rollout

Previous Posts: iPad Problems not Unexpected, says Oversight Panel Chairman; Board Turns a ‘Retreat’ into a Special Meeting on iPads; Local Groups to LA Unified Board: Let Schools Decide Spending