By Lindsay Tice,Staff Writer

POLAND – Poland Regional High School freshmen won’t get their own laptops this year. But they’ll have some machines to share.

Officials have purchased 60 portable computers for the school’s 300 freshmen and sophomores to use during class and for long-term projects. The computers must be signed out by teachers and cannot be taken home.

Over the summer, officials had planned to join a statewide laptop agreement with Apple, which likely would have given them dozens more machines. As late as August, Poland Regional was on a list of 34 high schools set to participate.

“We were very interested and went back and forth over the summer,” said Principal Derek Pierce. “But there were real financial constraints.”

The statewide agreement would have given the school more machines, getting it closer to one-on-one computing, but it would have cost more than the school could afford. Those laptops also would have been leased.

Instead, Poland Regional fully purchased its own 60 machines at a cost of $72,000. Poland Spring Bottling Co. donated $24,000. The school paid the rest through federal and local funds, Pierce said.

The new Apple laptops are wireless and have their own printers. They come on rolling carts that house 20 machines each, allowing teachers to check out one cart for a class.

Although priority will be given to freshmen and sophomores, teachers may check out the laptops for their juniors and seniors when the machines aren’t reserved.

Students will start using the laptops this week.

Maine’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.

Last year, laptop proponents wanted lawmakers to expand the program and pay to place laptops in the state’s 119 high schools. When the Legislature failed to set aside money, 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 rate as the state.

Thirty-one high schools, including seven from western Maine, went through with a state plan. They received their machines in October.