With more than 300 laptops set to be distributed to the student population of the new high school in time for classes to start next month, officials have opted against charging students and their families a fee to insure the computers.

According to Bruce Anderson, chairman of the school board, the question of how to insure the Apple laptops – part of the school’s one-to-one computing program – against theft or damage came up last summer when he and fellow board member Mark Brockmeier first took a look at the idea of handing out individual computers to students for use in class and at home rather than investing in computer labs for the high school.

“That topic came up a year ago and we had parents asking, ‘Is there some insurance that I can get because what if my kid uses it for second base and breaks it?’” Anderson said.

The school district had two options, according to Anderson. Either insure the equipment with an outside insurance provider or self-insure the laptops by pooling together funds collected in a lab fee charged to students or their families to cover the costs of repairing or replacing any laptops that get damaged, stolen or lost throughout the year.

With some officials concerned that setting aside a single self insurance fund would leave the district vulnerable to losing money if the laptop program had a particularly rough year, Anderson said the board chose to pursue negotiations with an outside insurance carrier.

The district now plans to spend roughly $20,000, at an estimated cost of about $63 per laptop, to insure each of the computers for the next school year, according to Anderson. For any laptop that is damaged or lost, there will be a $25 to $50 deductible that the individual student will be expected to pay, he said.

“What you’re going to find is that in most of these districts (with a one-to-one computing program) the breakage rate is very low. The kids like the machines and they become a part of their life and they care about them,” Anderson said.

Richard Manley, principal of the high school, contacted several other school districts that had implemented oneto- one computing or a similar program after the board asked him to see how other schools protected against damage not covered by the warranty.

According to Manley, the biggest problems other districts like Yarmouth, Maine, and the Empire School District in Arizona had run into was the occasionally misplaced laptop.

“The students (do not) experience a great amount of theft because every student has one and they don’t generally experience a great amount of losses because the students load onto these computers much of their academic experience and many other parts of their personal life,” Manley said. “They do sometimes leave them in one classroom or another, and they may be reported missing, but not frequently reported as stolen or gone permanently.”

Still, Manley said students and their parents will go through an orientation program at the beginning of the year designed to reinforce how to keep the laptops safe and undamaged throughout their academic career at the high school.

“We are educating students on the proper use of machines, making sure they have to exercise the proper care with the laptops and not only treating them properly, but making sure that they are kept in places that will remain safe,” Manley said. “It’s not particularly complicated, but it is important that people are aware that they have to be treated in a particular way so they last and are very reliable, and that is dependent upon the proper exercise of due care.”