This school year, all AAPS high school students were provided with brand-new MacBook Airs to replace the Chromebooks they had previously used. However, in March 2024, the Ann Arbor Public Schools school district announced a $25 million budget deficit for the 2024–2025 school year, which was caused by years of declining enrollment, overspending and issues with teacher pay. This led to many budget cuts for the district, including teacher layoffs.
Thus, it may seem surprising that the district was able to purchase new MacBooks for every high school student. So, where did the funds come from to provide thousands of MacBooks for students, and why did AAPS make this decision?
CHS Dean, Marci Tuzinsky, said that even when AAPS provided Chromebooks to students, some had their own MacBooks they would use instead. Many students who had their own MacBooks chose to use them at school because they worked more efficiently.
“Many kids who could afford to have an Apple computer brought them to school, and other folks had Chromebooks,” Tuzinsky said. “We were never going to win the battle of telling folks that they could only use Chromebooks. So by moving to an Apple MacBook, we are ensuring that every student in the district has equitable access.”
Tuzinsky additionally believes that it wouldn’t have been right to tell students they couldn’t bring their own devices to school, because she thinks MacBooks do much more than Chromebooks. Tuzinsky believes that MacBooks have a lot of the capabilities built in for students that the district would want them to know how to use when they go to college.
For example, Tuzinsky said MacBooks have a voice-to-text tool, which is extremely useful for people who have certain accommodations. Tuzinsky says there’s no reason why a student should bring a non-district device into schools and connect to the Wi-Fi, which puts all of the data and information at risk for students and staff in the building.
“What would happen is we would have some security issues with the number of people who are on our Wi-Fi,” Tuzinsky said. “If you are not on a district device, but you’re on the district Wi-Fi, it opens up a security risk to everybody who’s on it.”
Using a personal computer on the AAPS Wi-Fi creates security risks because it can introduce vulnerabilities to the school’s network, potentially exposing it to dangerous software or unauthorized access.
In the state of Michigan, there are a lot of laws around what money can be used for what things. Every year, AAPS gets a general fund from the state of Michigan, which is used for things that are necessary to pay for every year. Among the things AAPS has to pay for using the general fund are teacher salaries.
The money that AAPS used to purchase the new MacBooks did not come from the general fund provided by the state.” AAPS also receives money from capital bonds that can only be used for specific purposes such as improving infrastructure, updating the air conditioner system, or purchasing new computers. Prior to the 2025-26 school year, AAPS received a capital bond.
“The bond we received included technology which we used to purchase these new devices and update our servers,” Tuzinsky said. “At some schools [outside of AAPS], you can use the general fund for anything, but there’s not enough to do that [in the AAPS district]. So this money is separate from the general fund.”
CHS junior Aiko Shirato prefers to use the MacBooks much more than the Chromebooks AAPS used to provide to students. Shirato is still figuring out how to do many things on her MacBook that functioned differently on her Chromebook, such as taking photos, capturing screenshots and downloading PDFs. However, Shirato loves that the MacBooks work much faster than her previous school computer.
“I didn’t mind the Chromebooks, but I like the MacBooks more,” Shirato said. “The MacBooks definitely have many more resources, and it’s easier to get to stuff on the MacBook.”
CHS freshman Coco Pung thinks the MacBooks will be way more efficient than the old Chromebooks. Pung thinks that the old Chromebooks were very prone to damage; she went through three Chromebooks last school year, since each stopped working at a different time.
“There were a lot of quirks with the old Chromebooks,” Pung said. “I think it’s harder to navigate the MacBooks right now because we’re still getting used to them, but in the long term, I think they will definitely work better.”
To protect the security of students and staff while on AAPS Wi-Fi, MacBooks are now a big technological advancement. While some students may not like the new MacBooks, they are a great way to protect the personal information of all students and staff in AAPS.
