WEST BEVERLY — Seventh- and eighth-graders at St. John Fisher School in West Beverly will have to be careful with their backpacks next year.
Besides lunch bags, books and pencils, these 150 students will take a Chromebook computer home each day from the Catholic elementary school at 10200 S. Washtenaw Ave.
The computers are "a tool for the curriculum," said Patricia Reed, the vice principal in charge of technology for the school of roughly 700 children.
She said there are several reasons administrators opted for the Chromebooks, including having access to Google's Docs, Sheets and Slides apps. These word processing, spreadsheet and presentation programs allow students to work online together.
T.J. Gadzik, 13, of West Beverly is in seventh grade at St. John Fisher and has already dabbled in the writing program using a Chromebook. The device includes a full keyboard.
"I like writing essays in Docs. It is lot easier than writing on paper," said Gadzik, adding that he also likes sharing his work online with other students who can then provide feedback.
When it's time to turn in an assignment, the students will share their work with the teacher. Teachers can grade papers from their own Chromebooks and return them through the web, said Alyssa Smith, 13, of West Beverly.
"It's way less paper, so it's sort of helping the environment," said Smith, who is also in seventh grade.
St. John Fisher's addition of Chromebooks follows a similar move by St. Barnabas School in Beverly. The nearby Catholic school announced in February that all sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students would require an iPad next year.
Both schools were prompted to bring these devices to their junior high by the surrounding Catholic high schools. Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School, Marist High School, St. Rita High School and St. Ignatius College Prep all require iPads for incoming freshmen. Brother Rice High School requires new students to have a Chromebook.
Besides the devices themselves, there are key differences between the programs at St. John Fisher and St. Barnabas. Mainly, St. John Fisher will own the Chromebooks, while St. Barnabas' students buy their own iPads for $700 with the intent of keeping the devices as they head to high school.
Reed said the Chromebooks are only $200 each, which includes some management software, a sturdy case and permanent tag. St. John Fisher chose to buy these devices to spare parents the expense, Reed said.
That said, a series of infrastructure improvements were also needed so the new Chromebooks could access the web. These upgrades — plus the cost of the devices — brings the total cost St. John Fisher's initiative to $45,000, Reed said.
But the community has come together to support the new technology. A spring raffle raised $29,000, and the balance of the program will be paid through subsequent fundraisers, Reed said.
"People are very generous, and we are very lucky," she said.
St. John Fisher already has 130 iPads that are shared among students in the school on several mobile carts. The iPads now used for the junior high will be redistributed to the younger grades as a result of the arrival of the Chromebooks, Reed said.
Despite the influx of technology, Reed said much of the school's curriculum will remain intact. The students will still interact one-on-one through various class projects and activities. Traditional textbooks will also remain as digital versions are still years away, Reed said.
"I would never like to see the real books go away, because I love cuddling up with a good book," she said.
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