The start of a new school year always brings excitement for teachers, students and parents alike, and next school year will be no different at Lakin High School.
The Lakin USD215 Board of Education approved the purchase of 190 MacBook Airs to replace the High School 1:1 iPad initiative.
“The ipads have served us really well up to this point but I think it’s time we move forward and use the MacBooks because we can get more use out of them” Hattabaugh said. “We found our students maybe aren’t as knowledgeable in some of the applications that I use everyday in my profession as well as other professions; things such as Excel and Google Suite. We feel like in the long run, it’ll benefit our students whether it’s going off into the workforce, college, military, we feel like the laptop will help us a lot more with that moving forward.”
Most students and teachers are looking forward to the transition from iPads to MacBooks.
“It’s faster, it’s easier to type and it’s just all right there. iPads could be used as a distraction in class and MacBooks not as much.” said Allen Martinez, Junior, Lakin High School.
The district first introduced the 1:1 ipad initiative in 2012 when every student at Lakin High School received an iPad. At the end of their senior year, if the student had been enrolled in High School all four years, the students were allowed to keep their iPads.
“We think it’s going to help prepare them for college, and not just college… we have a lot of students who won’t go to college. If you go check out at a grocery store, computers are what they’re using to put the numbers in.” said Hattabaugh, Lakin High School Principal.
The technology department will collect all iPads at the end of this school year and will begin rolling out new MacBooks before the start of the 2021-2022 school year.