More than 3,200 iPads sitting in a state warehouse – 2,400 of them for the past year – have all been delivered to school districts across the state, a spokesman for North Carolina Superintendent Mark Johnson said.

Johnson faced criticism this summer after Charlotte teacher and education blogger Justin Parmenter wrote that thousands of iPads the superintendent bought were "collecting dust at the North Carolina Textbook Warehouse in Raleigh."

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Johnson's spokesman, Graham Wilson, told WRAL News by email Friday afternoon that "[a]ll of the iPads have now been distributed."

Last week, Johnson announced he was sending 200 of the iPads to Ocracoke School, where flooding from Hurricane Dorian forced 185 students out of their building. On Monday, he surprised Junius H. Rose High School in Greenville with 100 iPads after math teacher Tracey Moore requested some for her class.

It's unclear which school districts received the remaining devices. Since August, WRAL News has repeatedly asked the superintendent's office when and where the remaining iPads would be delivered. Johnson's spokesman did not provide specifics when reached by email.

"All districts were surveyed and asked to provide the number of devices they required to reach at least four devices per classroom for K-3 classrooms," Wilson wrote. "They were also asked whether they preferred iPads or Chromebooks. Where applicable, [the state Department of Public Instruction] first used the iPads ordered last year to fulfill these requests. Additional orders are placed by DPI on behalf of the districts, based on the information they provided, and shipped to a central location at each district."

The state superintendent 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. This summer, Johnson bought 800 more iPads, bringing the total in the warehouse to 3,200.

Johnson defended his decision to buy 800 more iPads and hold onto the 2,400 that were returned as part of "extensive, strategic work" his office was doing to help K-3 students. The 2,400 iPads were in the warehouse longer than expected, he said, due to Hurricane Florence and its aftermath that schools were dealing with.