A two-year old laptop program in Auburn, Alabama, has lost the funding it anticipated, and its future is uncertain. The district funded the first two years of the program with the hope that they could find new revenue sources during that period. It didn’t happen. Voters turned down one initiative, and other routes have not been found.

The Auburn City Schools’ 21st Century Learning Initiative issued all ninth-graders at Auburn Junior High School tablet laptop computers in October 2006. They got their computers back as they began high school this fall, and the new crop of ninth graders received new laptops. The program was to eventually include grades nine though 12. With no new funding, however, the district is now trying to decide how to distribute this existing collection over all grades in the future.

Even so, the program has been a success academically according to Beverly Harvey, a writer for the Opelika-Auburn News, who reports on enthusiasm, Google speeding the classroom pace, and individuals’ stories of heightened engagement.

Tenth-grader Spencer Ramsey says, "I can’t really imagine school without it now." But, explains Harvey, doing without might become a reality next school year. Just now, she writes, the fate of the program remains uncertain:

"At this point in time we do not plan to purchase laptops for the 2008-2009 school year," Auburn City Schools Superintendent Dr. Terry Jenkins said.

A committee consisting of employees from Auburn Junior High and Auburn High School is currently mulling over various options of how to use the laptops already purchased, Jenkins said. So far, he said, proposed options include assigning laptops only to certain classes or certain grades, or making the laptops available to students on mobile carts.

"We know we need to do this, we’re convinced it works; parents, students and teachers are convinced it works, but yet our hands are tied," Jenkins said of the laptop program, adding, "We’re not going to give up yet."

Source: Opelika-Auburn News, ACS laptop program in jeopardy