Information Technology Questions

New students in grades 1-12 and returning students in grades 5 and 9 will be issued iPads in mid to late August. A signup form will be sent out to parents/guardians in mid-August. New Kindergarten students will be issued iPads at school during the first 2 weeks of the school year.

Returning students in grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, and 12 will continue to use the iPad that they have been issued.

New-to-SPS families will receive an email communication about signing up for an iPad appointment sometime in mid-August.

No, however, if your child’s iPad breaks, you will be required to reimburse the District for repair costs. The District uses Apple's direct repair/replacement services. The most common cost for a typical glass breakage is $334.35. If the iPad requires replacement, you must reimburse the District for the replacement cost rather than purchase the replacement directly, as family-purchased iPads cannot be fully managed in our system. If you elect to use another insurer, please be sure that the insurer will provide funds to reimburse the district for repair or replacement and not direct device repair or replacement. Devices not purchased directly by the district cannot be used in the program due to the need to immediately "supervise" the devices for management.

Yes. The iPad and its case, charger, and charging cable are the property of the Shrewsbury Public Schools, and must be returned upon withdrawal.

Yes, if there is damage to the charger, cord, or case, families must reimburse the District for the replacement cost of those items.

Yes. Grades K-4 are issued Brenthaven Edge 360 cases. Grades 5-12 are issued Logitech Rugged Combo keyboard cases. 

Please visit our iPad Damages & Repairs page for further information.

No, the insurance does not cover the case but we will replace student cases if the damage is due to manufacturer defects or regular wear and tear.

Theft is covered (a police report is required for theft claims). Loss is not covered.

Typically a Shrewsbury Public School Student’s email is made by the student’s first name initial, second name initial, the first 4 letters of their last name and their graduation year.

For a student named Amelia Mary Earhart that is in 5th Grade (the Class of 2034) her email would be:

AMEARH34@students.shrewsbury.k12.ma.us

The insurance policy cost is per iPad.

Students will be issued a replacement iPad upon breakage. This iPad will become the student's assigned iPad moving forward. The broken iPad will be sent to Apple for repair/replacement, and the iPad returned will be placed into District inventory.

For K-4 students, iPads are allowed to browse specific preapproved websites. For middle and high school students, Internet access is filtered using Apple's built-in "Limit Adult Content" filters, in any location, in addition to more robust filtering when on the school network. Families can choose to set up Internet filtering for their home networks if desired. Information on this process can generally be obtained from the provider of your home router. Please see this page for additional information.

There is no limit to the number of claims per policy period.

Please see this page for information regarding replacement of lost or damaged items.

For safety reasons, all glass damage must be repaired. iPads with damaged glass will not be allowed to be used in school. Additionally, in order to protect the taxpayers' investment in the equipment and to be fair to subsequent recipients of an iPad, the District reserves the right to require that any damage to an iPad be repaired, regardless of whether it affects functionality.

No. Only district-owned iPads are allowed to be used in school, due to the additional management capabilities Apple offers for iPads that are owned by the district.

Here you may find step by step instructions: https://schools.shrewsburyma.gov/it/schoology-parent-instructions

No, if you do not use the app or set up an account, you will still receive communications via email and/or text message, depending upon the urgency of the message and whether you have supplied an email address or mobile phone number to the district. By default, non-urgent messages are grouped together to be delivered in a 6pm digest message.

Setting up an account offers additional features such as viewing of the staff directory and push notifications to the mobile app.

All contact information update requests are reviewed by school staff and manually updated in PowerSchool. Once this has been done, the information will automatically be updated in ParentSquare.

Parents may find their student’s passwords in this screen in the Parent Portal. See detailed instructions here.

Go to Settings:

1. Tap Passwords and Accounts.

2. Tap SPS Google

3. Tap your email under Account

4. Tap Password

5. Tap Done

Remember to type Shrewsbury’s Zip Code (01545) then tap Shrewsbury Public Schools

bit.ly/SchoologyAppLoginVideo

bit.ly/SchoologyAppLoginPDF

Here are some instructions on how to log back into Schoology. Please pay special attention to this screen as you need to tap Shrewsbury Public Schools, not the word Continue.

Remember to type Shrewsbury’s Zip Code (01545) 

Apps being used in the elementary grades include the following:

• Google Drive
• Google Docs
• Google Slides
• Google Sheets
• ST Math
• Pages 
• Numbers
• Keynote
• Book Creator
• Seesaw

The policy covers accidental damage, liquid submersion, cracked screen, liquid spills, theft, burglary, robbery, fire, flood damage, natural disaster, power surge due to lightning, and vandalism.

The premium for a Worth Ave. Group policy is $34 per year. Please see this page for details on what is included with each plan.

Please see our Replacement Costs page for detailed information on iPad replacement costs. 

The App Store will remain closed throughout the year.