WESTBROOK – Students in Westbrook will soon have access to laptops again, but not without being asked to take more responsibility for them first.

The Westbrook School Committee voted at a meeting last week to change the student laptop policy to hold parents responsible for any missing or damaged laptops. From now on, according to the approved changes, any parents whose children take school-issued laptops home may purchase a protection plan from the district for the laptops for $60. Those who don’t risk getting a bill for repair or replacement costs.

The district is in the third year of a five-year lease agreement with the state Department of Education. Last year alone, costs to fix or repair the 1,400 laptop computers leased to the middle and high schools cost the high school $47,000 and the middle school $8,800, according to figures provided by the district.

While much of that cost was covered by a voluntary buy-in “self insurance” plan through the schools, which was paid for by parents, the district paid for the rest. The exact cost to the district was not available, but Committee Chairman Ed Symbol said the changes in the policy were necessary to keep the city’s costs as low as possible.

“We need to drive home to the students that they are fiscally responsible (for the damage),” Symbol said. “The taxpayer should not be responsible.”

The self-insurance plan is handled by the district, not an outside insurance carrier. Symbol said insurance companies aren’t offering coverage for in-school laptops anywhere, due to the high liability that comes with issuing laptop computers to students.

“There’s no insurance company that will replace laptops anymore,” he said. “It’s just too expensive.”

Middle and high school students began the year without the option of taking the laptops home. For middle-schoolers, that meant using and leaving them behind at the end of the day. With no charging facilities for the laptops at the high school, students had no access to them at all until the committee ironed out the policy.

Tim Eisenhart, a math teacher at the high school, said the lack of available laptops hurt his classes. Describing himself as one of the teachers who makes the most use of the laptops with his classwork, Eisenhart said his students use the computers to access the curriculum, homework assignments and other classroom materials. There are even videos of classes available online via the laptops, so students out sick who need to catch up can do so.

“They don’t carry a book in my class, because the book is online,” he said.

Eisenhart attended the meeting to learn when – or if – the kids would be getting the laptops back, and said he was relieved when Symbol said that the approval of the new policy meant the laptops would likely be back in use within a week of the meeting.

“It’s not a (question of) ‘when should we get them back.’ It’s ‘we must get them back,’” Eisenhart said.

At the meeting, Jeremy Ray, the district’s director of operations, recommended the new changes. He presented an analysis of other options, including keeping all the laptops at school at all times.

That idea, he said, would cost the high school a lot more than $47,000. To store laptops at the school overnight, he said, would require mounting them on special carts that plug into the wall for recharging.

Right now, he said, the high school has no such carts available. Buying enough carts, he said, would cost more than $22,000 alone. In addition, the school would need upgraded power panels and outlets to handle the charging requirements. That would cost well over $40,000, he said, and take weeks to outfit in the aging high school building, and all the while students would not have access to the laptops. Finally, assuming the district paid for all that, Ray said, there would be an ongoing cost of nearly $150 per day to charge the laptops. Ray estimated the total cost for forcing the laptops to remain at school at about $121,000.

Ray said the committee could also opt for forcing parents to buy a plan if they wanted their kids to take the laptops home, but he estimated that would lead to around 450 laptops being kept at the school. That would be less expensive, but Ray still estimated the district would still have to come up with $71,000.

Under the policy, parents may choose to pay for the self-insurance plan, which would mean repairs would be covered, but if they don’t do that, the policy dictates the parents would be billed for any repair or replacement costs. Ray said that could cost as much as $625.

The only argument came during a discussion of how much the insurance plan would cost. The policy originally stated it would be $60, with an option for free and reduced-lunch families to get a discount.

“As crazy as it sounds, there are people who can’t afford $60,” said committee member Suzanne Joyce.

Despite objections, the committee voted 4-3 to remove the discount option, with members Joyce, Suzanne Salisbury, and Greg Smith voting against removing the option.

Ray said the district is about halfway through the five-year lease of the laptops from the state. Ray said the district is supposed to give the laptops back after that, but added he was confident that school officials would be analyzing the value of the laptops between now and then, and working on a technology plan for the future to address students’ needs.

“We value technology and we value its place in education,” he said.