LITTLE ROCK—Organizers want to expand a pilot program that equipped students with laptop computers so they can study science and math while riding to and from school on the bus.

The Aspirnaut Initiative began last year in the Sheridan School District, which covers 600 square miles. The intent of the program is to have students spend their time on the bus productively.

The program also pays for iPods, which are offered to students on the bus who are not in the program so they’ll have something to occupy themselves, organizers said.

Aspirnaut Initiative director Julie Hudson, a professor at Vanderbilt University, said the program will help the state with its long-term goals preparing students to enter the workforce. “There are many students in rural Arkansas, and many rural states in the United States, who have the challenge of long bus rides. There is a tremendous challenge in that that’s a lot of time each day, as you know here, perhaps up to 1 1/2 to two hours on the longest routes each way, each day of the week,” Hudson said while addressing a session of the House and Senate education committees last week.

The state has been focusing on courses that make students ready for life after high school—the so-called STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and math. Hudson developed the program with her husband, Vanderbilt professor Billy Hudson, who is a native of Grapevine in the Sheridan School District. The pilot program was developed as a partnership with the university and the school district.

Julie Hudson said the pilot program has been a success, and that coordinators will ask the Legislature in their coming session to fund an expansion. Hudson said 2,000 students could be added for each of three years at a cost of $2 million the first year and $1.5 million for each of the remaining two years. Hudson said the program would be spread equally among the state’s four congressional districts, though school districts would have to apply to enter the program.

So far, Sheridan students in the pilot program have completed 14 semesters of study in addition to their regular course load. That includes one student who completed a year-long Advanced Placement biology course and earned a score of 4 on an AP test. The tests are graded on a scale of 1-5, with a 3 considered a passing grade.

Mena School District superintendent Diann Gathright said he is interested in the program for his district. She said some students have daily bus rides of up to an hour and 15 minutes each way.