You Can Almost Never Give Away Assets to Students

I am sometimes asked about the correct procedure for giving assets to students, such as an incentive for NWEA results. This is very hard to do; it cannot be done casually. Schools can give devices to students, but it takes a fair amount of planning and clearance, beforehand, from Accounting is crucial. I've had a few conversations about this with Larry Fraze's team in Accounting. What follows are their policies; consider my notes an introduction to the topic. CPS Board Policy prohibits the gifting of CPS assets to students except in a limited set of circumstances: the devices were acquired with a grant specifically targeted for acquiring devices meant as an incentive; the devices were purchased with money from a fundraiser specifically organized for the same purpose; or the devices have been offered to every other school, no one wants them, and then the devices are offered to students in general via a lottery mechanism.

• Grants: You can give devices to students if you got them with a grant meant for that purpose. Larry Fraze described the Grant process to me like so: "Assuming the grant purpose is to gift the [devices] to students, [the grant would] be administered like any other grant. The [devices] would never become CPS assets, thus the Board prohibition against gifting would not apply."
• Fundraisers: Williedean Tate, formerly of Accounting, described this process to me. If a school has a fundraiser that specified the funds should be used to purchase [devices] for students to keep, it's possible that assets could be given to students. "Schools .. would follow normal fundraising procedures." See Accounting for more details. "If not, the [devices] belong to the Board."
• Unwanted Assets: This doesn't really fit the model of giving a student a device as an incentive, but it may be worth knowing. "If the school [has devices that it does not need], the computers would have to be offered to another school. And, unless no other school wanted the computers, computers could then be given to students but only in the form of a lottery." That process is documented here.
  

If you have questions on this topic, please contact Accounting.