With Parker’s tuition closely approaching an annual cost of $35,000 for grades six through eight, and tuition above that for all of highschool, not including the anticipated to jump another 3.5% next year, senior James Hulsizer may have discovered a way to cut one of the school’s significant costs.

This November, Hulsizer conducted a survey of the entire Upper School about their use of their school-supplied iPads, a practice instituted in 2012. The results of the survey indicated a perceived uselessness of the iPads within the Parker community.

83% of the 135 students who responded, according to Hulsizer, suggested that Parker should put the money spent on iPads towards a better use. Hulsizer followed up on these results by creating a proposal to eliminate school-provided iPads and use the funds saved for better purposes.

“I don’t remember ever using them in class,” Hulsizer said. “That sparked a mission to see how effective these iPads are.”

Though his data was more modest than expected, he still committed to the proposal. “I thought the data would lean more on the side of ‘Let’s get rid of them,’” he said, “but it still ended up being an overwhelming majority.”  

57.5% of students indicated that they they had not used their iPad all year, and an additional 28.4% said that they had used it only for personal gaming.

With only 14% of Upper School students using their iPads for academic purposes, Hulsizer and others have started to question why the iPad program is still in existence.

“Personally, I think this was a great proposal,” freshman Natalie Daskal said, “because iPads are totally pointless in my opinion.”

With only upper school math teacher Victoria Lee effectively integrating the iPads into courses daily, just a select few actually get productive use out of the iPads. “In Ms. Lee’s math class, iPads are very useful,” freshman Ava Sato said. “I’ve never even taken it out of my bag in any of my other classes.”  

Sato’s math teacher, Lee, feels that iPads are very useful. Lee uses the devices in each of her courses throughout a typical day. “My students use them every day,” Lee said. “But I don’t think everyone should have an iPad. A lot of kids don’t use them.”

Freshman Celia Rattner, a student in Lee’s Geometry+ course, agreed. “The entire curriculum is based around the iPad,” Rattner said of Lee’s course. “Taking away the iPad would be difficult for the kids in Geometry+ because the nature of geometry involves a lot of writing. The iPad makes that a lot easier.”

Rattner finds the iPad necessary because of the extensive writing in geometry and her constant use of them. Though, according to several students, the Geometry and Advanced Geometry courses have continued to use pencil and paper even after the implementation of iPads.

Hulsizer has discussed possible uses of the money that would be saved by the elimination of iPads with Ruth Jurgensen, but as of now, he has been told that he may not release this information.

According to Hulsizer, personal iPads will be given only to students in Lee’s classes next year. iPad carts will be provided for the science department as well.

Due to Hulsizer’s departure for college next fall, sophomore and Computer Technology Committee (CTC) head Nathan Satterfield will be following through with the implementation of the new iPad program.

“I’ve been looped in so that someone will be here next year to carry through with the proposal,” Satterfield said. ”I am going to continue what I started this year.”