Texas school district switching from Chromebooks to 14,585 iPads and MacBook Neos

A Texas school district is replacing thousands of aging Chromebooks with iPads and MacBook Neos after mounting repair costs helped make Apple’s hardware the cheaper option over a four-year period.

As reported by AppleInsider, Beaumont Independent School District has approved a four-year lease covering 14,585 Apple devices, including 4,085 iPads for younger students and 9,500 MacBook Neos for older students.

The agreement is valued at $11.19 million, with the district expecting to make annual payments of roughly $2.8 million.

The move follows growing problems with Beaumont ISD’s existing device fleet. Deputy superintendent Rachel Harrah said almost two-thirds of the district’s current computers are beyond their recommended life cycle.

The district recorded more than 6,600 repairs last year, while repair and support costs reached almost $470,000 across several reporting periods.

Replacement parts for some of the aging Chromebooks now cost more than $100 each, according to the district, increasing the cost of keeping the existing fleet operational.

Beaumont ISD considered devices from Lenovo and Asus alongside Apple’s hardware before concluding that MacBook Neo offered a lower four-year cost.

Apple’s financing terms were also part of the calculation, with the district citing 0% financing on the laptops, 0.99% financing on iPads, access to AppleCare+, and the potential resale value of the devices at the end of their use.

The deployment will give iPads to students from pre-K through second grade, while older students will use MacBook Neo. The agreement also provides 1,000 MacBook Neo laptops for teachers.

Beyond repair costs, district officials said they want students to gain experience with hardware more representative of devices they may encounter outside school.

The first lease payment will come from district reserves, with later payments funded through existing revenue and equipment replacement budgets.

Officials plan to assess the Apple devices after four years rather than automatically replace them, leaving open the possibility that the district could extend their working life if their condition remains suitable.

The switch highlights one of Apple’s longstanding arguments for Macs in education and business: a higher initial hardware cost can potentially be offset by longevity, support costs, financing, and residual value.

For Beaumont ISD, the decision means moving a large part of its student computing environment away from ChromeOS and into Apple’s ecosystem over the course of the new lease.