News 13 Investigated the Horry County Board of Education’s decision to go against its original plan to distribute tablets to all elementary school classes.

Last week, News 13 reported the board of education voted against giving tablets to all elementary students.

Instead, the devices would only go to fifth graders.

Originally the board planned to distribute devices to all elementary school classes.

Board chair Joe Defeo said after the meeting, the district was not prepared to handle its original timeline.

However information board members cite for their reason to vote against the tablets seems to differ from what the district says.

“We’ve encountered a lot of issues both at the middle and high school level I feel that we need to resolve before we put out 9,800 more devices,” said Janice Morreale.

Morreale was the board member who suggested the district not distribute tablets to all elementary school classes.

She says in some cases students with damaged tablets were without their devices for upwards of a month.

She also says the district does not have enough extra tablets to hand out to students if their device is damaged.

However, an email News 13 obtained from the school district to board chairman Joe Defeo, states “the average turnaround time has been between 9-10 working days”.

It also says “there are nearly 1,000 iPads that were purchased as extras, loaners, etc so many students would not have been without a device”.

“I trust my parents, my teachers, and the staff inside these buildings to tell me what’s actually happening,” said Morreale.

Looking over the districts numbers, News 13 found in some cases tablets were out of service for upwards of 28 days.

Defeo says because of this, change is needed.

“That is too long for a child to be without a device,” he said.

Defeo says he has heard complaints from more than a dozen parents.

He says the district told him if a student is without insurance, they cannot receive a loaner device which he says is not fair.

However, district officials tell News 13 regardless of insurance any student can receive a loaner tablet.

They say a student with insurance will receive priority over one without insurance.

They also say the 9-to-10 day average turnaround is from the vendors.

In some cases, tablets take longer to come back to the student because parents do not sign the proper paper work.

The district also says they were instances where they ran out of loaner devices.

However, they do not document these numbers and say they were isolated cases.