Los Angeles district mulls suing Apple over iPad curriculum

The Los Angeles Unified School District wants Apple to refund millions of dollars because of problems with curriculum software that was included with iPads provided to students and staff

The Los Angeles Times reports that the school board has authorized lawyers to consider suing Apple and Pearson, which developed the curriculum. In a letter sent to Apple, David Holmquist, general counsel for the district, said the school system will not accept or compensate Apple for new deliveries of the curriculum.

Los Angeles Unified's ambitious technology plan called for spending $1.3 billion to upgrade Internet connections on campuses and provide iPads to all of the district's 650,000 students. Problems with the rollout, which began in 2013, ultimately persuaded the school board to back away from the goal of providing the tablet devices to every student; in the aftermath, superintendent John Deasy resigned under pressure.

The newspaper also reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has begun an inquiry into whether district officials used bond funds properly to pay for the thousands of iPads it purchased. Critics have raised concerns about whether Apple or Pearson had an unfair advantage in the bidding process for the planned one-to-one technology initiative. The FBI already is conducting a probe into that accusation.