Tablets Over Textbooks: iPads Come to Sweetwater Classrooms

With the start of a new school year, Mar Vista Middle School students and all other Sweetwater Union High School District 7th graders received iPads and access to digital textbooks Wednesday.

The initiative to buy iPads for about 5,500 students in its first year is expected to cost about $4.3 million a year. The ultimate goal is to put the devices in the hands of all students.

First year funding will come in part from Proposition O monies and other sources.

Before the district's Board of Trustees approved buying iPads a group of more than 20 teachers chose the iPad over other tablet devices, and a pilot program was held in a Hilltop Middle School classroom in spring 2012.

Minor repairs may be made by district technical support staff, while major damages or loss of devices may be covered by the district's insurance policies.

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