VIRGINIA COMPUTERS STOLEN http://www2.dailyprogress.com/news/2011/apr/28/county-schools-search-111-stolen-computers-ar-1003649/

County schools search for 111 stolen computers

By By Sharon C. Fitzgerald and Brandon Shulleeta 
Published: April 28, 2011

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Police are investigating the disappearance of 111 laptop computers stolen from an Albemarle County Public Schools storage facility in November.

School officials are now working to make sure they have enough computers for students to take annual state-mandated tests next month.

“[The stolen computers] are brought to the schools to supplement the computers they have in regular deployment in order to accommodate the number of test takers on a given day,” said Maury Brown,spokeswoman for the school system. “We will ensure that we have adequate resources to administer the tests on a daily basis.”

School officials discovered the computers were missing while conducting a standard inventory process in November, Albemarle police Sgt. Darrell Byers said.

They reported the theft to police in January after conducting their own internal review, Byers said.

Brown said that the school division conducted an internal inventory, in an effort to make certain that the computers hadn’t been deployed within the school division. Police were not notified immediately of the unaccounted for computers because the division wanted to be sure that a police report was warranted, Brownsaid.

Brown and Assistant Superintendent Bruce Benson did not provide a precise date for when the school division first became suspicious computers were missing. However, Benson said that a report was filed with police shortly after he became aware of the missing computers.

“As soon as we confirmed that we could not find them in the division, we reported it to police,” Benson said.

The reserve computers were primarily used to administer Standards of Learning tests in May, Brown said. These tests are given to students in various grades to assess their achievement in reading, mathematics and science.

“On any given day during the May SOL testing window we need between 2,200 and 2,500 computers for testing across the division,” Brown said. “[They were] primarily used in various schools in order to have enough computers to accommodate SOL testing.”

She said the reserved computers are also used for special projects requiring a larger number of computers for backup.

The computers were being housed in an off-site, secure storage facility, but Byers said he could not release specifics about the location and did not know when the computers were last used.

Police are also not releasing information on the type of computers that were stolen and are still working to determine the value of the stolen items, Byers said.

Brown said she could not release any details about the case that could hinder the investigation.

The Albemarle School Board discussed the division’s use of technology on Thursday, and division Chief Information Officer Vincent Scheivert highlighted some concerns with the division’s Department of Accountability, Research and Technology.

“DART suffers from a transparency issue,” Scheivert said. “We’re going to try to be more transparent.”

Scheivert, who was recently hired, said there’s a desire to have stakeholders outside of the administration more aware of decisions related to technology and increase their involvement in the decision-making process.

The School Board heard from an array of parents, teachers and students on Thursday about some of their experiences with school technology, as well as some recommendations for changes.

Anyone with information on the case can call the police at 296-5807 or Crime Stoppers at 977-4000.