Newsclip

Laptops Handed Out
Berkshire Eagle | January 11, 2006
Tony Dobrowolski

PITTSFIELD — Reid Middle School yesterday became the second of four schools participating in the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative to hand out laptop computers to its seventh-grade pupils.

Silvio O. Conte Middle School in North Adams gave out laptops to its seventh-graders on Monday, while seventh-grade pupils at Herberg Middle School and St. Mark School will receive their machines today.

When the roll-out is complete, 711 seventh-graders at the four middle schools will have received laptops this week. That figure includes 510 pupils between Herberg and Reid, 131 at Conte and 70 at St. Mark.

Each pupil is required to sign an agreement before receiving a laptop. According to Herberg Principal Christopher Jacoby, the agreement states that each pupil will take care of his or her laptop in a responsible way. The agreement also states that each pupil will not access Web sites that they are not supposed to access.

"It's basically the same agreement common to all schools before kids can use computers," Jacoby said.

The goal of the $5.3 million Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative is to help improve achievement and to transform the way education is delivered to middle school pupils in each city. Pupils will use their laptops as an educational tool. The BWLI, which is a three-year initiative, is being used as a pilot program by the state.

Incoming seventh-graders are scheduled at those four schools to receive laptops in September. Current seventh-graders will keep their laptops through eighth grade, then turn them in when they graduate. Those computers will be given to incoming sixth-graders in September 2007.

A total of 2,305 laptops are scheduled to be distributed in the roll-out.