Want a brand new Macbook Air? Perrysburg students taking them ho - News, Weather, Sports, Toledo, OH

Beginning next year, ninth graders at Perrysburg High School will each be given a brand new MacBook Air to use in class and take home at the end of the day. Students in fifth and eighth grade will get Samsung Chromebook laptops.

The district says the computers are part of a pilot ‘one-to-one' technology program, where each student is given their own computer to use in class and at home.

"After carefully studying the changing role of technology in the classroom for the last year by making 12 site visits to other districts that are already implementing a one-to-one program, the district is now poised to do this pilot program," said Thomas Hosler, superintendent.

The district says it plans to gauge the successes of the program throughout the year. If all goes well, Perrysburg hopes to have laptops in the hands of all fifth through twelfth-grade students by the 2015-2016 school year.

"The state is requiring Ohio school districts to administer all reading, language arts and mathematics standardized tests online to students in grades 3-12 by 2014-15," explained Hosler. "We need to make sure our students are prepared for this challenge as soon as possible."

The pilot program will cost taxpayers $563,600, or about 1.5 percent of the district's operating budget.

The district has scheduled meetings with parents to explain the parameters of the program later this month.

Meetings scheduled: 

-For incoming eighth graders: May 16 at 6 p.m. at the junior high

-For incoming fifth graders: May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the junior high

-For incoming ninth graders: At the high school to be announced soon

Perrysburg is joining other districts that already have a one-to-one program in place, including Defiance, Hicksville, Sandusky Perkins, Central Catholic, St. John's and Eastwood.

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