JOPLIN, Mo. — The Joplin Public School district is making sure students have the latest technology by purchasing new Chromebooks.

During the school board meeting last week, board members approved hundreds of new laptops for 7th and 9th graders.

The Chromebook refresh program’s price tag is more than $481,000.

It’s money already earmarked for the expense.

The new tech is being paid for through the districts 2022-2023 technology budget.

“Just to try to keep up with the demand of the digital platforms that Joplin is bringing onboard and stuff. Just like your phone after a while you can’t upgrade it any further and you have problems downloading Apps and everything its the same thing with Chrome OS. So we need to keep up with the Chromebook mode,” said Eric Pitcher, JPS Director of Technology.

Pitcher says the older laptops will either be recycled to other grades or sold through a buy-back program.