photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World

Lawrence school board members met on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.

Members of the public will soon have the chance to purchase “surplus technology devices” from the Lawrence school district, which the district will no longer need after purchasing new MacBooks for staff and high school students.

On Tuesday, school board members approved the sale, which will be carried out by the IT asset management and disposal service Synetic Technologies. The district said in a news release that the sale will be offered via a Shopify link during a two-week window in June, and will include 2020 M1 MacBooks with the cost per device ranging from $350 to $400 with a 90-day warranty.

As the Journal-World has reported, the district outlined a priority for the 2025-2026 school year to replace the iPads that high school students had been using with MacBooks, which were a “more college aligned laptop.” The board approved a lease-purchase agreement with Apple for the new laptops at its meeting on May 12. The district, however, already had some MacBooks for temporary checkout at its high schools prior to that agreement.

The district has not specified the number of surplus devices for sale, nor the exact dates for the sale.

According to the board’s agenda, Synetic Technologies will wipe the data on the devices and physically clean them, and those who have purchased them will be able to pick them up from a designated school district site in late July. If that timeframe is not convenient, purchasers can pick up their devices directly from Synetic’s headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri.

The agenda said there would be limits on how many devices a person can buy to prevent people from buying them in bulk and then reselling them for a profit.

Board member Shannon Kimball said more information would be provided about the sale as it approaches.

In other business, school board members:

• Approved the purchase of Handwriting Without Tears, a curriculum resource to help teach handwriting, for the 2025-2026 school year for an amount not to exceed $70,000.

• Approved the purchase and installation of Alerton Compass software and controllers for the HVAC system at the Educational Support Center in the amount of $38,700.

• Approved the proposal submitted by Jayhawk Fire Sprinkler Co. Inc. for fire sprinkler head repairs at multiple buildings across the district to meet the National Fire Protection Association’s standards at an estimated cost of $46,458.

• Approved the extension and purchase of 740 licenses of myPerspectives English Language Arts 2017 Digital Courseware, Grade 9 in the amount of $24,240. The original purchase was for a six-year license expiring at the end of July, and the extension makes it accessible for another year during the 2025-2026 school year.