North Coast primary and secondary schools reopen their campuses for classes on Monday, Aug. 27, and students will find a few changes.

If they’re in grades six through eight, they’ll be receiving iPads, with cases, on which to do much of their studies. High school students (grades nine through 12) each will be issued an iPad after Christmas.

As Chris Adams, superintendent of the Coast Unified School District wrote in his Aug. 20 letter to parents, the district’s pilot

program last school year, in which two sixth-grade classes shared 30 iPads, was so successful it has been expanded.

“Students who initially were not ‘tech savvy’ found the iPad’s intuitiveness extremely helpful,” he wrote, noting that the youngsters used the tablets “to take notes, develop 3D models, analyze data and make movies.”

The district purchased 390 iPads at a discount from Apple, and is preparing them for use. The students will be responsible for the tablets, as they are for textbooks. Parents may purchase insurance coverage for the iPads.

Enrollment

While enrollment numbers won’t be firmed up for a couple of weeks, officials estimate that at the starting bell Monday approximately:

• 325 students will be at Cambria Grammar School (up from 320 last year, down from 340 in 2010, but the same as in 2009)

• 176 at Santa Lucia Middle School (down a bit from 178 last year, but up from 172 in 2010), and

• 240 at Coast Union High School (up from 225 last year, but down from 250 in 2010).

The Cambrian was unable to get by press deadline the enrollment figures for the 2012-13 school year at Leffingwell High School and Cambria Community Day School, which began the 2011- 2012 school year with 16 and 10 students, respectively.

New teachers for this school year include:

• Grammar school, Marissa Conway, who is to teach a special day class;

• Middle school, Kyle Martin, a resource specialist for the campus, and transferred teachers April Benham, who has moved over from the grammar school to teach English language development and medieval history to seventh graders, and Olga Arias, transferring from the high school, who’s to teach Spanish; and

• CUHS: Amber Mailhot is to teach math, and Daniel Schalk science. Steve Dunn has transferred from Cambria Community Day School to take over the history class that new school Principal Wade Lawrence used to teach.