Phenix City high school students, teachers to get computer tablets

Each of Phenix City’s 2,000 Central High School students and 200 teachers will be equipped with a computer tablet, starting next school year.

During its monthly meeting Friday, the Phenix City Board of Education unanimously approved superintendent Randy Wilkes’ recommendation to pay Dell Financial Services $178,000 annually for three years in a lease-to-own contract for the Google Chromebooks.

This is the next step in the school system’s i3 Initiative, which emphasizes inquiry, innovation and impact. Last year, the board approved spending $750,000 over three years in a lease-to-own contract to equip 1,500 students and 100 teachers at Phenix City Intermediate School (grades 6-7) and South Girard School (grade 8) with iPad Airs.

Wilkes told the Ledger-Enquirer the Chromebooks were selected for the high school instead of the iPad Airs because the school system “desires that its students become familiar with both the IOS (iPad) operating system and cloud computing (Google Chromebook). The Chromebook is more affordable ($200 compared to $400), has near unlimited storage, keyboard for typing assignments, larger screen, 2 USB ports as opposed to none, and has perhaps greater durability.”

Seven months through this first school year with the iPads in the middle grades, the school system has needed to repair only 4 percent of them so far, Wilkes said. In his previous school system, Crenshaw County, the breakage rate was about 12 percent, he said.

“I’m very pleased with the way our students are taking care of them,” he said.

As with the iPad program in the middle grades, parents of high school students may request their students stick with textbooks instead. Only a few have chosen that option, Wilkes said.

The next goal, the superintendent said, is for each student in grades 3-5 to have “an electronic device on their desks, so we’re not finished.”

He also emphasized, however, that the electronic device is “a resource to have students more actively engaged in the learning process and give them more access to information and to allow them to collaborate more on research, but it’s not the end-all. The teacher still is the most important factor in the classroom.”

This story was originally published February 26, 2016 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Phenix City high school students, teachers to get computer tablets."