School District iPads - Over Summer Qs

We have them broken down into 3 age ranges: Upper, Middle and Lower school.

- Upper School students keep their iPads over the Summer. They do their own updates and we advise them when not to do updates, etc.

- Middle School students return them to us. We backup, repair (way too many are broken), update, return to students the first week of class.

- Lower School iPads live in carts so we do the same thing as middle school students.

It is a lot of work to do this, and we are looking for any way to make the iPads a lot easier to manage. DEP and VPP have helped but it is still quite a lot of work.

@rhoward - do you erase all content on the devices that get turned back in or how do you manage their user data? Do they get the same device back they had the year before?

Thanks!

We try to give the students the same iPad, but with how poorly students treat their iPads, sometimes it isn't possible. As for the data we make an iCloud backup of their data, then we wipe and update them (Erase All Content and Settings). We also have all of their Apple IDs and passwords (we batch create them with security questions so if they change the password we still have access to their emails/Apple IDs) so we're not concerned about Activation Lock.

@rhoward
How do you do the IC loud backup? Assist the student or some administrative way?

Anyone else have some input?

We collect all iPads and store them over the summer. The iPads are given back to the students in the same condition as they were turned in except broken ones. We have the broken ones repaired over the summer.

We do make sure all students sign out of iCloud and the AppStore when they turn them in. That way, if they leave the district we are not stuck trying to get them re-activated. Students are responsible for all data they might be saving on the iPad. We let them know a week or two prior to collection to back them up.

rhoward- are your devices supervised? Your approach is similar to ours. We allow the high schoolers to keep them over the summer but this is our first year with middle school devices which we plan to retain over the summer. Trying to determine time frames and logistics for the summer months. Do you restore the iCloud backup for the students before you issue them back out or do you leave that up to them to do before school starts?

@tech-msg the iPads are all supervised through DEP and our Pre-Stage Enrollements. We do all of the backups and such when school ends, and if they need to be wiped or replaced for damage (a whole other conversation) we restore them before the students come back. This takes a lot of time, but we hire recent graduates over the summer to help. Last year it took a super long time because we had to enroll every device and restore every device to get it in DEP, but this summer I suspect it will be 80% less work going forward.