Friday, April 29,2005 @ 1:00pm
Cobb County board approves Apple contract
The Cobb County school board approved a final contract with Apple yesterday evening for what could become one of the nation's largest efforts to provide laptop computers to students, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "You've got to look at what works for kids," said board member Johnny Johnson, before joining a 5-2 vote in favor of the contract. "Give them a tool they know how to use much better than we do." The Cobb school district's more than 7,100 teachers may get their state-of-the-art Apple iBooks as soon as July. In the next few weeks, four high schools will be designated as pilot sites, where students will get iBooks sometime next school year. The first phase of the program also calls for upgrading middle school computer labs starting next fall. The Cobb program eventually could distribute 63,000 Apple iBook computers grades six through twelve.