The Clarke County Board of Education unanimously approved purchasing 3,000 Chromebooks for middle schoolers for $1.42 million at its monthly meeting Thursday.
“This is an effort to create equity across the entire school district in our middle school buildings,” said Mumbi Anderson, board president and District 6 representative. “Not everyone can afford a laptop.”
She said she hopes this deal with educational technology provider Virtucom will give every student access to the same technology and the advantages that brings, regardless of financial background. Along with helping students through middle school, Anderson highlighted the long-term benefits of familiarity with laptops from high school to the workplace.
Any sort of skills that you can use from an educational perspective on a laptop is always going to transfer to some sort of future skill or future occupation,” Anderson said.
The board also voted to approve a $781,000 proposal for work on the Clarke Central High School gym roof and air conditioning replacement. The Crawford gym roof is “cracked, bubbled and in need of replacement,” along with the four HVAC units serving the space, according to documents provided to the board of education. Stiles Heating & Cooling was selected for the job after four reviewers scored it the highest out of a field of nine candidates.
The board did not discuss the West Broad Street School campus, but the February 2026 SPLOST report presented at the meeting shows a $30,444 change order for the cleanup and asbestos abatement contract cost. The contract amount increased 21.3%, from $142,924 to $173,368. This increase occurred while the project is still in the abatement and cleanup phase following a fire inside the Campbell Lane building last year.
The campus, which has been in disrepair and abandoned in recent years, has major historical significance as the first Black school to receive accreditation in Georgia in 1922.
“It is a cultural icon, and we have not treated it that way,” said District 3 representative Linda Davis.
A public update session on the plans for the complex is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 19, at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. in the Vernon Payne Meeting Hall and livestreamed on the district’s YouTube channel.
There is now a push and a plan to restore the space and “reimagine it as a vibrant educational and community space that supports our students and serves our Athens community for generations to come,” Interim Superintendent Jennifer Scott said in a previous meeting.
The meeting also spotlighted recent student accomplishments, including the results of the district spelling bee. Burney-Harris-Lyons Middle School seventh-grader Phoebe Geisenhof was the champion and advanced to the regional round, which will be held at Clarke Middle School on Feb. 28. Nora Varsa, a fifth-grader from Johnnie Lay Burks Elementary School, finished as runner-up.
Story by David McFarland and photography by Autumn Lake and Sydney Grove, all journalism majors in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
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