Mt. Vernon School District

District 80, in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, will soon be providing every teacher and student in grades 3-8 with a laptop for educational use. This is being made possible by a $658,000 grant from the Illinois State Board of Education’s “Children’s Low-Cost Laptop Program.”

The grant is the largest competitive grant awarded as part of the program, according to Mt. Vernon superintendent Kevin Settle. The district will purchase a mix of Windows-based laptops and Android-based mobile devices -- more than 1,000 machines, in total. Settle said the use of the computers will likely operate like textbook rental, where students will pay a small insurance fee and then be able to take the computer home. The district’s wireless Internet infrastructure is being updated to support the new technology.