CBS News: Maryland’s largest county distributes laptops to students for remote learning (features Blair High School)


Excerpts below are from the CBS News.com March 27, 2020 article, ‘Maryland’s largest county distributes laptops to students for remote learning

Silver Spring, Maryland —As the largest county in Maryland, Montgomery County, prepares to take its classes online for students within days, it is ensuring students who need laptops will have them. Public school staff handed out laptops across the county on Thursday [March 26, 2020]..

At first glance, the parking lot distribution looked like a fast-food line, with dozens of cars idling in an organized fashion. Drivers patiently waited for a signal prompting them to roll forward. But instead of ordering a burger through an intercom, parents held up a piece of paper displaying a student ID number through their car windows. 

Donning personal protective equipment, like face masks and disposable gloves, Montgomery County Public Schools staff in Maryland communicates the number to colleagues standing a few feet away. 

“Today we are doing Chromebook distribution,” said Renay Johnson, the principal of Montgomery Blair High School, in Silver Spring, Maryland. “We are supplying technology for our students who need technology at home to continue their learning, or maybe their parents are working from home. Now our students will have their own devices to do their schoolwork.”

Micheline Ewang waited in two separate, but efficient drive-through lines in order to obtain laptops for her two children. “When I saw it, I was like ‘Thank you, Lord,'” she said, referring to the county’s laptop loan program announcement.