El Paso ISD: Creating equity with Apple Technology

Recognizing the uniqueness of each of their 58,000 students, the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) created a program that understands the importance of providing all students with equal educational opportunities, while also ensuring their education is rooted in quality teaching. That's why they initiatied the PowerUp movement.

“We call it a movement, because that’s really what it was,” said Isaac Williams, assistant principal, Brown Middle School, EPISD. “We had to reimagine our classroom, the instruction and how we saw the world of education.”

The PowerUp movement began in 2015 with five teachers and a principal - all determined to change the educational landscape. “We call it a movement, because that’s really what it was,” said Isaac Williams, assistant principal, Brown Middle School, EPISD. “We had to reimagine our classroom, the instruction and how we saw the world of education.” In addition to shifting their mindset, the district also knew their existing HP laptops wouldn’t allow them to create what they felt 21st century learning needed to be. So they turned to Apple. In the summer of 2017, the district distributed 15,000 MacBook Air laptops to students in grades six through nine. In August of 2018 they rolled out another 12,000 devices. Now, all students, grades six through 11, have laptops.