Re: Major interview

[Harry McGregor <micros@azstarnet.com>]

On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Jim Wildman wrote:

> They never learned how to do math, did they?
> 	
> Jim Wildman
> jawildman@cfanet.com
> 
> 
> On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Harry  McGregor wrote:
> 
> > University High School just signed a lease agreement for a new lab of
> > workstations.  32 compaq PII 450MHz systems (don't know the rest of the
> > specs off the top of my head, but SCSI was not even close to part of it)
> > and 32 iMac computers.  They are paying $45,000USD per year, can you guess
> > how many years? One? Two? Three? Four? nope.... FIVE YEARS.
> 
> $225,000/64 =~ $3500 a piece.  Let me guess, a 5 year technology grant
> from the taxpayers?
> 
Nope this is being done with desegrigation money.  The district spent
their entire $xxMillion technology bond issue (about 10 years ago) on Mac
LC labs.  They have the monitors dropping like flies.  Of course the 12"
monitors laster 6-8 years...

Now they are wondering what to do... They can't do another bonding easily
(and why in the world would you use BOND money for technology, bond money
is for things that last, like new schools), and they don't have the money
to waste buying new compaqs, so they are stuck.

The last compaq labs built by the district (5 years ago, in the high
schools) were 486dx2-66, 8MB ram, 384HD, 256color vga, 14" monitors,
10Mbit shared ethernet (no switches), P75 server (proliant), 250user
novell license.  Each lab (31 student systems) cost the district
$250,000USD.

			Harry