“Thornton Academy is finalizing plans to provide laptop computers to its students next fall. Lloyd Hunt, director of instruction at the private high school in Saco, said officials have been discussing the possibility of laptops for years,” Jen Fish writes for The Portland Press Herald. “‘It could really be transformational,’ Hunt said of the technology, citing the ability of laptops to bring the most up-to-date information to students and provide all students with access to a computer 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
“Hunt said that, to his knowledge, Thornton is the first of Maine’s independent schools to implement such a program. All seventh- and eighth-graders in Maine’s public schools are provided laptops. This year, Gov. John Baldacci endorsed the idea that the program be extended to high school students,” Fish reports. “Officials have estimated the program will cost $3 million to start and cost an additional $900,000 a year to maintain. Thornton is negotiating with Apple Computer to determine whether it will lease or buy the computers.”
Full article here.
Sweet! more iTunes customers and more Apple lovers
Great to hear this news. I thought, though, that Apple already had Maine in most of it’s schools?
“Apple had Maine in most of its schools” – say what? ;-] Do you mean “Maine had Apple in most of its schools?” JJ. Read the article! Apple’s deal previously was with public schools. Thorton Academy is a private school.
It is good to see that at least some of the private school kids aren’t going to be left behind.
Yes, yes, those poor private-school urchins must not be left behind! After all, once their parents spend $6,000+ to send them to Thornton Academy each year, they might have trouble scraping together another thousand to get them a new iBook (each year).
However, the article makes a good point – kids in Maine’s public junior high schools are using iBooks now, so when they walk into some expensive private high school, you can bet Mummy and Daddy are going to be expecting at least as much. Hopefully Thornton will go for 12″ PowerBooks or something, so that the little rich kids won’t have to feel like commoners.
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Ouch Dan, the little green giant is rearing it’s head……..
And you know for a fact that all the parents who send their children to private schools can easily afford it? Some do no doubt, but most have to work their asses off to pull together the funds for their kid’s education.
Ain’t jealousy a curse….
WOW..Somebody has a real problem with the wealthy..I would have a hard time believing that ALL of the students come from “RICH” families..Define rich for me will ya Dan? You don’t think that some of those parants sacrifice to pay the tuition, so the “Urchines” get a decent education??
Didn’t anybody actually notice the
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I you guys had computers you could google thornton academy tuition and find out that max tuition is $7200. Not a lot, relatively speaking, if the education is any good.
I am not wealthy by any means but I make sacrifices every day for my children. It all comes down to what is really important to you as a parent. Private schools are not the problem, people are.
$7000 per year to send your child to a private school, beats the crap out of what I get for the $7000 a year I pay in property taxes.
I wish the school district I work for would get it’s head out of it’s a$$ and invest more in Apple equipment instead of idiotic Wintel crap.
Kids? I wouldn’t have one in the house!
“Kids? I wouldn’t have one in the house!”
I second that. I’d rather suffer the weekly worm, virus, bug, popup and update maintenance of a Windows box. Then again, maybe kids would be less annoying.
If you live in Saco you don’t need to pay for tuition my parent pay in taxes. I go to TA and I think I recieve a great education, and I believe the laptops are useful. You don’t need to be rich to go to school there, I actually do go, therefore I know that a least half the kids arn’t rich, I included.