Cheltenham School District (Elkins Park, PA) serves a diverse population of nearly 37,000 residents in a nine square mile area on the northwest border of the city of Philadelphia.
When a host of students in one of the district’s middle schools were recently displaced because of a structural issue, the district’s administration looked to provide 300 Acer C740 Chromebooks to the pupils for their use during this time. That number has risen to nearly 2,000 throughout the entire district due to needs in other schools.
However the district’s in-house technology department did not have the capacity to provide the many services each Chromebook required to get them ready for use on a tight deadline. After Cheltenham turned to Troxell Communications to supply the Chromebooks for its students, they also then inquired about Troxell’s white glove service. For each Chromebook, this service would include unboxing, updating with the latest software, registering on the management console, installing in a charging cart, asset tagging, and delivering each cart full of Chromebooks to the desired location.
Troxell’s Eastern PA/Delaware account executive David Wible (based in Springfield, PA) explained that in order to best prepare the Chromebooks for Cheltenham and have them in working order upon demand, they held the devices in a local warehouse until the district was ready for them. “Once we unboxed, updated the software, registered, and asset tagged each Chromebook, we had the devices placed and wired into a number of 30-capacity AVer ChromeCharge carts so they were ready-to-go for the students’ use upon our delivery to each location.”
Tim McCleary, Cheltenham School District supervisor of technology, explained that they chose the Chromebook for their students because it is quick to start, easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and reliable. “We have a small technology department, and Troxell’s handling of the entire process was a great time saver for our personnel and exactly what we needed…and they actually beat our tight deadline.”
McCleary added that two of three of Cheltenham’s targeted schools are now 1:1, with the third in the planning stages for the near future with additional Chromebooks and Troxell’s white glove service. “The overall management of the process from beginning to end was made so much easier by David [Wible] and Troxell’s white glove service,” McCleary concluded.
