Sunday, July 31,2005 @ 1:45pm
Judge halts Cobb County's iBook program
Cobb County Schools were dealt a major setback last Friday when a judge put the massive 63,000 iBook program on hold. The Cobb Superior Court judge ruled that the $100.8 million laptop program "greatly differs from technology plans voters were promised in the 2003 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax referendum, [SPLOST II] " according to the Marietta Daily Journal. Announced in early May as the largest ever one-to-one computer learning initiative, the program, the district's "Power To Learn" program calls for Apple to provide iBook G4s to every student and teacher in the district, starting with deployment this fall of more than 17,000 iBooks for teachers district-wide and students at four high schools designated as demonstration sites and could extend all Cobb County high school and middle school students in 2006.
The judge's ruling follows a July 8th hearing on a lawsuit brought by former Cobb Commissioner Butch Thompson against Redden and five of the seven school board members who voted for the laptop program, according to the report. The lawsuit claimed the program never specified funds to provide laptops to all middle and high school students, but did not contest the issuance of laptops to teachers.
In April, the school board voted 5-2 on April 28th to begin Phase I of the program, which would give laptops to all 7,100 teachers and 8,500 laptops to students at four pilot high schools--costing the schools approximately $25 million. About 550 teachers already have received their laptops, but plans for the other 6,550 teachers and the 8,500 students are uncertain, according to the report.