EANES ISD Board trustees approved an Introduction to App Development course for both Hill Country and West Ridge middle schools Jan. 30. The course will be available to seventh- and eighth-grade students as an elective beginning in 2018-19. Jerri Lamirand, the district’s director of science, technology, engineering and math, said that over the past few years numerous students have shown interest in taking classes in which they would learn how to develop applications for iOS and Android platforms. The new course will allow students to learn programming fundamentals and receive firsthand experience with various software programs, she said. “It’s the first true coding course at the middle school level,” she said. The course also acts as a prerequisite to the Swift Coding course that will be available to Westlake High School students in 2018-19.