Some Poughkeepsie students are starting the school year at a disadvantage.

Tareebia Wakely told Spectrum News Tuesday the Poughkeepsie City School District has not fully supplied her school-age children with the proper devices to take their classes remotely.

Wakely said her son Aydyn, 6, already had a school-issued Google Chromebook that his previous teacher told him to keep through the summer, but her daughter Redlily, 5, still needed one.

Having just lost her job due to coronavirus-related cuts, Wakely scrambled to buy Redlily her own device.

Wakely said she did not have that problem with the nearby Arlington School District, where her other son, Kari, attends school.

“That district supplied everyone computers,” Wakely said. “Whether they needed it or not.”

Wakely said she cannot send Aydyn and Redlily to Arlington Schools along with Kari because they need the special education program that Poughkeepsie Schools offers, since Aydyn and Redlily have autism.

“If I don’t do it for my kids, who else will? Not the [Poughkeepsie school] district,” she said. “I’m doing this for other special needs families, too. These children’s needs are not being met.”

At an August 26 school board meeting, Superintendent Eric Rosser informed the board that additional devices have been ordered and should arrive in October.

Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, Poughkeepsie School Board President Felicia Watson told Spectrum News the district currently has more than enough Chromebooks for every family in the district, but not enough for every student.

“We’re a poor urban school district and we have not been able to do a lot of planning,” Watson said. “No one (other districts) has been able to.”

She also said the district received state assistance to buy the additional devices just weeks ago, and that by mid-October, the student-to-device ratio will be 1 to 1.

“That’s Phase Two. That’s when every student will have a Chromebook,” she explained, adding that families with multiple students can still receive an additional device before the next batch arrives.

Watson asks those families to fill out the technology survey on the district’s website and to reach out to administrators.

The district’s main phone number, which is also the suggested number for parents to call with any technology questions, was glitching Tuesday, but an employee at the front door of the district office said the problem with the new menu would be checked out.

Meanwhile, it is unclear how the district will accommodate siblings who must share a device while their classes happen at the same time.

Rosser could not be reached for comment.

With just four tumultuous school days completed, and with weeks to go before the new devices arrive, some families are clearly struggling, parent Vanessa Porter said.

Relaxing in her yard after classes, Porter said the district issued each of her daughters and nieces Chromebooks.

“We were lucky,” she said. “They never sent me an email or anything that they were handing them out. A friend of mine messaged me and told me. Ten or fifteen minutes before they stopped handing them out, we got there to get some.”

Porter saw that multiple students in her daughter’s class were using their parents’ phones, some of which were incompatible with the software, to log into class.

“They don’t have the laptops with the cameras and the mics, so they have to use their parents’ phone,” Porter said. “Their parents have been on the mic, saying that they’re trying to get the Chromebooks, but they’re having problems with people calling them back to get them.”