Rainer Scholl (FDP) is visibly annoyed by - from his point of view - irrelevant and incorrect reports on the progress made in digitizing the 45 district schools in the 17 cities and municipalities.

However, it is not only district parliamentary groups that sometimes clearly blame the voluntary school head and his employees for the lack of progress.

The taxpayers' association has just criticized omissions in the district in its "Black Book".

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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According to this, the district bought exactly 1566 laptops and tablets last year for more than 900,000 euros.

However, more than 300 devices remained unused in the schools for half a year, as reported by the taxpayers' association, which therefore made several representations to the district administration in Bad Schwalbach until the grievance was remedied.

1566 iPads for homeschooling

Scholl counters: "We've done our homework." From his point of view, it was necessary to set priorities when it came to digitization, even if not everyone liked it.

Scholl wants to have invested the total of 9.6 million euros that the district receives from the digital pact and has to spend by 2024 before this deadline.

It is true that the district only calls for financial support when it has the invoices for it.

Although this could give the wrong impression, it made sense in the past because the district initially “parked” the funding it received with banks and had to pay negative interest for it.

According to a list by the administration, around 2.6 million of the 9.6 million euros have been spent and devices for two million euros have been ordered.

Scholl assures that the budget from the digital pact will be fully utilized in any case.

Regarding the 1,566 iPads that were purchased during the pandemic, primarily for homeschooling, the district says the devices were loaned to the students during distance learning.

Since the return to face-to-face teaching, the iPads have been used in the schools and occasionally lent out “as needed”.

"WLAN for everyone"

Scholl does not think much of a digital concept that is repeatedly demanded because it would be outdated within a very short time.

First of all, the digital pact should be completely processed.

Then a media development plan could follow.

With one exception, comprehensive school WiFi is available at the schools in the Rheingau.

It makes sense that the Waldbachschule Hattenheim will only be connected once the ongoing renovation has been completed.

In the district of Untertaunus, the program has also been completed, with the exception of a few schools.

According to Scholl, the new WLAN networks are initially only available for the school's own devices in accordance with the specifications of the Hessian data protection officer.

For the private devices of students and teachers, there will be an open “WLAN for everyone” within the next few weeks, initially at schools with upper grades, provided the schools want it and approve it.

According to Scholl, it will be up to each individual school whether and when it actually activates the “WLAN for everyone”.

Delays due to supply bottlenecks

However, any WLAN is only as good as the broadband connection is fast.

According to Scholl, however, the fiber optic connections depend on the service and progress made by Telekom, and the company is not always and everywhere as fast as the district would like it to be.

According to Scholl, the third field of digitization lies in equipping schools with modern presentation technologies, i.e. projectors, so-called whiteboards, interactive display boards and streaming boxes such as Apple TV.

According to Denise Lang, the employee responsible for this, 655 interactive panels, 128 projector systems, 306 digital display boards and 650 streaming boxes have now been ordered at the request of the schools.

At times, delivery bottlenecks from retailers or manufacturers prevented faster equipment.

According to Lang, a total of a dozen schools have already been fully equipped, orders are being placed for a further 14 schools, and inspections, discussions and electrical connections still need to be made at 17 schools.

According to Scholl, the district is on the right track.

From his point of view, however, the question already arises as to how things will continue once the devices, which have been purchased with a lot of funding, have reached their life cycle.

Then who pays?

And will a laptop in the future be a device that falls under the freedom of teaching materials?

For the taxpayers' association, it is obvious that the budget for school digitization should be distributed according to actual needs and not according to the watering can principle.

Expensive IT, which loses value in cupboards, helps neither teachers nor students.