The District 233 school board approved a budget of $922,548 for technology purchases at Homewood-Flossmoor High School for the coming year. That reflects an E-rate discount of approximately $22,200. Overall, the budget increased just $2,748 over the previous year.

The majority of the budget, given the green light at the board’s April 15 meeting, shows replacement of existing technology is 84.3% of the cost with new technology integration coming to 15.7% of the expense. Steve Richardson, director of Information Services, said the budget is designed to “support instructional technology, maintain secure systems and invest in future-ready infrastructure.”

The five major sectors getting improvements are information systems, 60.3%; Career and Technical Education, 7.8%; Security, 7.4%; library/media, 4.1%; and administration, 1.1%.

Richardson reported to the school board that the major investments coming from the Information Services Department include “a data center, network switches, wireless access points and firewall replacement. These investments are crucial to replace aging infrastructure while providing performance and security enhancements.”

Richardson will be ordering 850 Chromebooks, for each incoming freshman, transfer students and stock on-hand; 82 workstations for teachers and 49 workstations for staff; 18 new laptops, iPads and interactive TV; five Mac books and six iMacs.

Richardson was hopeful this budget will be close to final costs, but he reminded the board that pricing may change because of tariffs. “Some vendors have reported the possibility of up to a 10%-12% increase in pricing,” he told the board.