Dive Brief:

• On Friday, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines said the district is close to reaching a settlement with Apple and Pearson over its problem-riddled iPad deployment.
• The deal will reportedly come in at more than $6 million and could involve money for schools to test out innovative tech programs.
• Previously, the district had demanded that Pearson and Apple refund the $1.3 billion spent on the iPads, which came with curriculum and learning tools preloaded.

Dive Insight:

The LAUSD iPad rollout has become a cautionary tale for districts looking to implement large technology programs. But it doesn’t seem to have discouraged the district from testing out new tech-driven solutions. Corntines said all of the settlement money will go back into technology initiatives, including device repair, innovation grants, and more. Some of that will also go into backfilling schools with technology gaps, but also to schools with programs already in place.

“I don’t want to penalize the schools that begged, borrowed and sold cupcakes to bring technology to their schools,” Cortines told the district’s tech task force.