Remember not too long ago when Mark Johnson bought 24,000 iPads with Read to Achieve money that was just laying around?

From WRAL.com August of 2018:

Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson announced the plan Tuesday morning, holding up an iPad for the media, the governor and other members of North Carolina’s Council of State. Johnson’s office put the statewide pricetag for the devices at about $6 million. It didn’t immediately have a per-unit price to quote.

The money will come from some $15 million in unused money the Department of Public Instruction has from previous budget years. Just why this money has been sitting unused is a matter of some dispute.

But many of them sat in a warehouse for about a year and Johnson still purchased some more. From WRAL August of 2019:

More than 3,200 iPads are sitting in a state warehouse – 2,400 of them have been there for a year – but North Carolina Superintendent Mark Johnson says the devices will be delivered to districts this school year. He plans to announce details next week about what schools will be receiving them.

Johnson bought 24,000 iPads for North Carolina’s K-3 teachers last year, but schools returned about 2,400 of them, or 10%, because they preferred other devices, such as Google Chromebooks. Last month, Johnson bought 800 more iPads using money from his superintendent’s budget, bringing the total in the warehouse to 3,200.

So after receiving criticism that there were some iPads collecting dust, Johnson then made sure to get them out to schools. He said that the hurricane season had caused delays the previous school year.

Again from that previous WRAL report:

More than 3,200 iPads are sitting in a state warehouse – 2,400 of them have been there for a year – but North Carolina Superintendent Mark Johnson says the devices will be delivered to districts this school year. He plans to announce details next week about what schools will be receiving them.

And then this occurred:

Teachers were being told that they simply could “reach out” to ask for iPads.

In this pandemic where over 70% of students in NC are now in a form of remote instruction, many districts are scrambling just to get some sort of technology in the hands of students so they can be virtually linked to their classes.

So, are any of those iPads being used for this purpose?

Any still in the warehouse?

Legit questions.