For the last three years, every high school student in the North Kansas City School District has been issued a MacBook Air to bring to and from school for a variety of activities, assignments, and research projects. The MacBook Airs have been a way to integrate technology into the lives of student. Similar to how the district upgraded the students from Mini Notes to the current MacBook Airs, there is another upgrade coming in November. While the school is not upgrading to a completely different type of computer, it will be beneficial to the students nonetheless.

“The Macs that you’re getting have more memory space for the programs that high school students need,” says I.T. building support Tammy Bissell. “They look basically the same as the ones you have now.”

The distribution of these computers is scheduled to be around mid-November. Students will have to back up all of their work before they turn in their computers on distribution day.

“[Distribution will be] like how it was when you picked up your Mac at the beginning of the year, just with the additional step of turning in your current Macs” added Bissell.

Along with these new computers, district expectations of the students are increasing.

“They’re going to be more stringent on [paying for] repairs,” explains Bissell, meaning the tech support staff is going to be less lenient on those who have damaged MacBooks or MacBook chargers. They will also be more insistent on students buying insurance for the computers.

There are new plans for the old computers being returned. They are being cycled down to the middle schools in the district. The middle schools’ computers are being cycled down to the elementary schools, which have very outdated technology.

“[The school district] is trying to get everyone a little more current,” says Bissell.

However, not all of the computers are going to the middle school students. The MacBooks will not be on a one to one basis with the middle school students, and will not leave the schools, unlike the high school students’ computers.

Since the schools get these computers on a lease program the district has to turn in the 2000 MacBook Airs in the best condition to Apple to trade in for the newer computers the high schools are getting. In the end, everything comes full circle.­