BIDDEFORD — This fall, Biddeford High School freshmen and sophomore students, as well as some upper class students, will have new Apple laptop computers at their disposal.

After considering the matter for several weeks, on Tuesday the School Committee approved the purchase, at a cost of approximately $591,000.

“If we want a change in the classroom, this is the best way to do it,” said Assistant Superintendent of Schools Jeff Porter, a strong proponent of making laptops available to high school students.

The district will purchase, at a reduced rate, new laptops through the Department of Education’s Maine Learning Technology Initiative. This initiative has provided free laptops to Maine’s seventh and eighth grade students since 2002.

Maine was the first state to furnish laptops to middle students, according to the DOE. It is also the first to provide them to high school students, in districts that wish to participate in the program.

The new computers to be purchased by the district will be distributed to all ninth and tenth grade students, as well as upper class students who attend courses that include pupils in the lower grades.

The district is also buying out the 570 two to three-year-old laptops that were leased by the DOE for students at Biddeford Middle School and by faculty and staff throughout the district. Middle school students will get new replacement computers at the state’s expense.

The buy-out for the older computers, with storage carts, is $131,000. The new laptops with carts will cost slightly more than $451,000. The total cost adds up approximately to the amount the school district is receiving via the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The state is using a portion of its share of the federal stimulus money for education to reimburse school districts around the state with the the amount of state aid funds that were initially held back during a budget shortfall in the beginning of the year.

According to the DOE, districts should receive these funds in the next week or two. The laptop purchase is dependent on receipt of the stimulus money.

When the School Committee first considered purchasing laptops for high school students last month, the initial proposal was to purchase new laptops for all high school students at a cost of close to $1 million.

Many members of the school committee balked at spending that amount during the current economic downturn, especially with a referendum bond scheduled for November to renovate the high school, at a cost which could be as high as $38 million.

Committee member Daniel Boucher said he was interested, but, he asked, “How are we supposed to deal with it when we don’t know the impact?”

A lower cost proposal was presented to committee members on June 9. At that meeting, they voted to table the matter so the Finance Committee could review it.

The option approved on Tuesday provides new laptops to the two lower high school grades, as well as junior and senior students attending classes with freshmen and sophomores.

It also makes the older computers available to eleventh and twelfth grade students through a lending library and teachers will be able to assign the laptops to their classes for specific projects and other uses.

Students at the high school have been using 100 computers for the whole school and sometimes there were even fewer because these older machines often broke down, said Porter.

Porter said he’s pleased that the School Committee approved the measure.

“Students can do amazing things in the classroom” with access to computers, he said.

Although the school will not be getting rid of textbooks any time soon, Porter said, these laptops will allow students to have primary sources and other types of information “at their fingertips.”

Included in the purchase price will be a new wireless network for the high school, professional development for instructors, a five-year warranty for the laptops and educational software.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.