Points to Ponder: $1M in PC/Smartboard purchases

At tomorrow night's FTT meeting, bids for PCs and Smartboards for the new high school will be discussed.

Yes, opening a new high school costs a lot of money to equip. But we learned with the erection of Creekside that we bought expensive Smartboards for EVERY classroom, yet there are still classrooms that aren't being used! More to the point, we hear reports that not only are teachers not unilaterally enamored with the Smartboards, but we also hear frequent reports that the equipment doesn't always work well.

So the question our school board SHOULD (but won't) be asking is: Do we really need all of these? Or is this a place to reduce costs. No one's talking about degrading the state of technology such that the quality of education declines. It's a fair question. And a fiscally conscious school board would be asking the question, particularly in light of the state of the economy.

$3000/smartboard x 121 = $355K
$500/PC x 1375 PCs = $687K

That's over $1,000,000!


The "wreckers" out there will pick and nit and nit and pick, all the while suggesting that we are anti-technology, or even anti-education. Bah! Hamburg! Empty rhetoric, we say.

The questions we are asking are quite simply...do we need every single one of 1375 PCs to open the new high school? No teacher should be forced to use any particular technology. Subsequently, rather than fixed-mounting a Smartboard in every classroom, why don't we purchase a number of mobile platforms that teachers could use on a limited term basis as fits in with their curriculum?

We repeat...these should be questions posed by the school board of administration--not the community! Oh...and the board all reads this blog, and thus we even expect to hear some of these questions tomorrow night, But...in the end...the board will do what it does best...rubber stamp their approval with a 7-0 vote of approval.

Could this be one of those places where we save the taxpayers money at this juncture and purchase what we need? Then, down the road, we could purchase additional equipment as it becomes truly necessary. Having a wealth of technology is less of a value if it is not being used. In fact, warranties could expire before the equipment even gets broken in.

We also wonder why we wouldn't be migrating some PCs from PVMS and PMMS to the UMS and some PCs from the existing HS to the new HS???

One final point to consider is that the district operates off of a 5-yr PC replacement cycle. If we buy 1375 PCs today at a cost of nearly 3/4 of a MILLION dollars, then aren't we going to have that cost (plus others on the 5-yr cycle) 5 years from now?

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RECOMMENDATION: The Supervisor of Technology recommends the approval of the bid to purchase 121 SmartBoards, 121 projectors and wall mounts, and 129 Smart audio systems, for a total bid of $354,906, from Tierney Brothers, Inc, Minneapolis, MN.

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RECOMMENDATION: The Supervisor of Technology recommends the approval of the bid to purchase 1,375 Dell desktop computers with 4 GB RAM, 17 inch monitor, and 3 year warranty, for $497.34 each [Total Cost $683,842.50] , from Heartland Business Systems, Little Chute, Wisconsin.

An extended warranty option was considered for desktops and laptops. Current policy targets a useful life of five years; leaving two years uncovered by warranty. Due to the additional cost of the extra warranty, and the number of computers being purchase, we feel it is too expensive and unnecessary to purchase the additional warranty.The recommended systems are $91.66 less than we paid this year, for a savings of $126,032.50.