Education

Vail, AZ — When photographers and television crews visit Empire High School, the students don’t always understand why. Principal Cynthia Lee has to remind them that their learning environment isn’t quite the same as in other schools: At Empire, textbooks are not a part of the curriculum. Instead, every student and teacher has an Apple notebook offering access to rich digital media, and the school boasts 156 wireless access points — including the football field. True, this teaching and learning model is creating quite a stir in the local community and national media. But for Empire’s students and teachers, it’s just school.

Officially opening its doors at the start of the 2005-2006 school year, Empire is the first high school in the country designed to be entirely wireless and textbook-free. Though many other schools are rolling out 1 to 1 learning initiatives, Empire took the concept a step further, opting to provide an exclusively digital curriculum in all subject areas. For Vail School District Superintendent Calvin Baker, the objectives were clear.

“We wanted to change the nature of instruction, and create a more relevant setting for our students,” he explains. “With the Apple notebooks, we believe we can provide our students with the technology skills they’ll need in the 21st-century workplace.”

[What] swayed our purchasing decision was the stability of the Macintosh notebooks, and their protection from viruses.

— Calvin Baker, Superintendent, Vail School District

Savings on Textbooks Funds 1 to 1 Learning

Empire High School bucks other norms as well. For example, students from all over the 425 square miles of the Vail School District were encouraged to enroll, though Baker and his colleagues chose to cap the student body at approximately 750 to ensure a more personal environment. Additionally, while Baker and his team were investigating a variety of instructional models for the new school, they received an intriguing invitation from the Arizona Department of Education.

“We were asked to come talk about the possibility of implementing a 1 to 1 learning program,” recalls Baker. “Soon after, we visited Apple and had several meetings, and we told them we were sold on what we’d seen. But we weren’t sure how we’d be able to pay for all of the notebooks.

“Together, we came up with the idea of going without the textbooks, and using those dollars as a way to make the program work,” Baker continues. “Everyone responded positively. We went back to our school board and they said, ‘Go for it.’ Sometimes those things just line up!”