Network upgrades to push up cost of LA schools' massive iPad project
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An average of $750,000 per school is budgeted for wifi upgrades necessary for every student to have an iPad.
The L.A. Unified school district is planning to spend more than $700 million to upgrade servers, pull wire and connect antiquated schools to a data grid - a necessary part of its massive effort to get every student and teacher on wifi, according to district documents.
But only some of those costs are included in the district's $1 billion estimate for the program.
The $700 million is a conservative estimate pieced together by KPCC from several documents - L.A. Unified officials would not provide a total cost of network upgrades.
The district's IT Strategic Execution Plan, compiled last year, indicates 694 schools need to be upgraded - all but 63 of the district's campuses. A construction list for 2014 shows an estimated cost of $297 million to upgrade 402 schools next year - about $750,000 each.
If the rest of the schools come in at about the same amount, that adds up to $520 million for school buildings alone. And technology experts said that's not the entire cost.
The district must upgrade its data center in order to handle the mass of new devices - and new risks - that come with handing every student a computer.
Two other district documents show upgrades to the central system will cost $387 million.
Total costs may be even higher. Supt. John Deasy requested $854 million this month
