WLWT News 5 — Frank Adams runs the Cincinnati Computer Cooperative in Woodlawn, a nonprofit organization that refurbishes business computers and sells them at a low price to teachers and students.

"Demand is really through the roof," Adams said. "We’re about out right now. ... We get a lot of students from CPS in here. We get them from all the school districts around here, pretty much."

Brisk sales at the cooperative point to the desire Greater Cincinnati parents have to make sure their kids have the technology they need to learn from home.

Access to devices like Chromebooks and iPads for students is not uniform. For example, a spokesperson for Grant County Schools says the district does not have enough devices for each student. The spokesperson said the district has "made a major purchase of Chromebooks, some of which are arriving in time for our Aug. 26 start date, some of which will not."

"Personally, my own daughter is in a grade level that had a communication out to parents just to say that her MacBook or Chromebook would be delayed," Jamee Flaherty said.

Flaherty is an assistant superintendent with Fort Thomas Independent Schools. She and her colleagues have worked hard to avoid the kind of tech crunch facing her daughter, who attends class in another school district.

"Everyone now has that mindset of what they may be in store for," said Jody Johnson, Fort Thomas Independent Schools' director of technology and information.

Students in Fort Thomas had access to tablets long before COVID-19. But turning simple access into an authentic classroom-at-home experience has involved thinking outside the laptop.

"It is about how do we maximize the use of those devices?" said Bill Bradford, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning for Fort Thomas Independent Schools. "Teachers, administrators, we all need to learn different and new ways to engage students and ensure that they have equitable way experience as they would have had in person."