It may be the middle of August, but for some students at a Citrus County middle school, it feels a lot like Christmas morning.
About 250 seventh-graders at Citrus Springs Middle School received iPads this week. The students get the devices for the school year and can even take them home.
Student Rebekah Ruiz said she's very excited about her new iPad.
"It is really cool," she said. "There is so much stuff you can do with it, even though it is only school stuff."
Once the students get everything they need and are used to the iPads, the plan is to use them in just about all of their classes. They will be wired into their teachers, which means the classic excuses for failing to do their homework will no longer work.
"When students are out absent, no longer is there the reason, you know, 'I can't catch up,'" teacher Atressa Mayes said. "I can send that right to them via email."
School officials applied for federal grant money, and when they received it, they decided to go high-tech.
Unfortunately there aren't enough iPads for everyone. Ruiz said the sixth- and eighth-graders are jealous.
"Yes, they are," she said. "They are actually really jealous."
No other school in the county has handed out iPads to students.
School officials are calling this a trial run. They said that if everything goes well, they will try to get some more iPads for next year.