For the past several years, students in Coupeville schools have enjoyed new, up-to-date computers to help complete their assignments.

While the students use the modern equipment, the school district has had to go through the difficult process of disposing of numerous old computers.

The Coupeville School Board declared these computers surplus during their Monday evening meeting.

The three-page surplus list shows a virtual history of the personal computer and how it’s changed over the years. Vintage Mac Classics and Apple IICs are just some of the more than 100 computers being cleared out.

“Some of these are just dinosaurs. We just can’t use any software on them,” said Superintendent Bill Myhr.

The school district has already found a way to dispose of some of the more functional computers. Students in a computer repair class have taken some of the surplus computers, updated them and then erased all school district information in their memory. Those computers were then given to needy families who didn’t have a computer of their own.

Myhr said such computers have to be able to handle basic word processing functions and be Internet compatible for the families. These computers will also help improve communications with the school district.

“For some of these families, it makes some things available that they would not have,” Myhr said.

The school district has been updating its computers over the past three years. The current computers, which include eMacs, were purchased with such funding sources as the Gates Grant and other grant sources teachers obtain.

With the computers declared surplus, workers had to make sure all school district information was wiped from the machines.

Myhr plans to sell the computers, and any other surplus items, at a public sale. He didn’t know when such a sale would take place but it will be advertised in local papers.

Anything remaining after a public sale will either be recycled or thrown away.