After a year of almost-agreements and broken plans, Maine high schools finally have their laptops.

Thirty-one high schools, including seven from western Maine, went through with a state plan to lease the machines for $300 each from Apple Computer. Five other schools, including Mt. Abram High School in Salem, brokered their own deals with the computer giant.

The portable computers were delivered in October. Teachers are training to use the machines and workers are installing wireless networks in each of the schools.

Some schools haven’t given the computers to students yet.

“There isn’t a day that goes by without a kid coming up to me and saying Hey, when are we getting our laptops?'” said Bruce Lindberg, principal of SAD 43’s Mountain Valley High School in Rumford.

Mountain Valley leased 300 machines, enough for the entire freshman and sophomore classes. Four technicians are setting up the machines.

Like other schools, Mountain Valley hopes to present the laptops to students by Dec. 1. The hand-over will come after a year of heated political debates and failed agreements.

Last fall, school officials and laptop proponents had hoped lawmakers would fund the high school program as they had a middle school program. But the Legislature failed to set aside money.

Then, over the summer, the Maine Department of Education brokered a deal with Apple to lease the computers directly to Maine high schools. Schools would pay the bill, but would get the same $300 rate as the state. In return, Apple wanted a guarantee that at least 8,400 computers would be leased.

Too few schools signed up for that plan. Many said they couldn’t afford it without state help.

Finally, just weeks before the new school year began, Apple agreed to lease the computers to the few dozen schools that wanted them.

Each school will distribute the machines differently. Some will give one computer to every ninth-grader. Others, such as Oak Hill High School in Wales, will make the computers available to students in all grades.

The state’s first-in-the-nation middle school program has provided laptops to more than 34,000 seventh- and eighth-graders and teachers. That program is in its third year.

Officials say they hope the state will fund the high school program next year so more of Maine’s 119 high schools will join in 2005.