BOISE - State officials on Tuesday awarded an eight-year, $180 million contract to Hewlett-Packard Co. to supply Idaho high school students and teachers with laptop computers as part of the Students Come First education overhaul.

Gov. Butch Otter and Public Schools Superintendent Tom Luna announced Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard as the winning vendor at an event on the company's campus in Boise.

The decision came just two weeks before voters will decide whether to keep or reject the plan to provide every high school student, teacher and administrator with computers.

Other provisions of Students Come First limit teachers union bargaining power, require online classes to graduate and promote merit pay for teachers.

Otter and Luna said Tuesday the computers are critical for students to fulfill the new online-class graduation requirements. The Republican governor lauded the choice of Hewlett-Packard - with its Idaho ties - as the supplier of its Probook Notebooks to teachers and students.

"If we use yesterday's education system for today's children, we deny them the promise of tomorrow," Otter said in a statement.

The big contract between the State Department of Education and HP also covers work to start the wireless network, distributing the mobile devices to students and teachers, monitoring and maintaining the system and devices, and training teachers and staff.

The cost breaks down to about $300 per student and teacher.

The process for picking a winning vendor was delayed for several months due to complications in the bidding process. Initially, state education officials hoped to have the first batch of laptops in teachers' hands this fall.

Now, the computers are due to be handed out to instructors sometime this winter, with students getting computers later.

Luna acknowledged that the fate of the computer contract with Hewlett-Packard depends on voters approving Proposition 3 on Nov. 6, but he said it's still an important step in the process of arming students and teachers with modern technology.

"Idaho is finally on a path to providing equal access to the best educational opportunities to every student, no matter where a child lives in our great state," Luna said.