Why Apple. Any brand PC should work just as well not? And at 1/2 the cost.

What happens when the kid breaks the computer, loses it, refuses to return it? Are you going to hold the parents responsible? If parents are going to agree to pay for replacement etc, they should be able to afford to buy their kids a computer on their own. For the most part most of Salisbury lives well above the poverty line. Why not just get computers for the truly needy? I think the choice to use the same computer for everyone is not a move to help students, but rather the teachers. If everyone has the same "equipment" teachers only have to format assingments etc in one way. Something fishy about this whole thing. Not to mention apples are way more costly than any other laptop.

Wow...here we go. The Apple platform is in less than 10% of professional businesses and continually there are people that want to push it on to students "because it is better." I am not debating if it is good or bad as I am indifferent but am trying to be real and ideal. Mr Zigenfuss...I am going to massively challenge your proposal. I have coordinated, purchased, supported, configured, had lunch with Michael Dell....you name it I have done it with laptops and technology where I just do not see the logic in your proposal. To the panel of the school board, as Ms. Looby presented prior to me, I strongly encourage you to open your eyes, allow for more investigation and counter proposals to be made. Before stones are thrown, I am prepared to catch them. I own 3 Iphones (all unlocked), 4 Ipods, 2 MAC computers and a host of other Apple products. Guess what? They all sit unused in favor of the PC and Android platform.

Mr. Zigenfuss - I am starting to question your qualification as the director of technology for STSD. Your decisions lately have been rash, empty and not filled with knowledge in favor of a gut reaction.

Please visit this District link to learn more details about TL2014 - how it will benefit students and taxpayers.

http://bit.ly/mirSXV

Those numbers in your proposal are based on the purchase and lease price of an Apple computer. Change those numbers to allow for a PC. Mr. Zigenfuss, the cost is going to be considerably LOWER. Admit it you are partial to the MAC platform, maybe getting a cutback or a gift from the supplier (this is only a guess) and want the schools to be outfitted with nice shiny white or silver computers, all with minimal support provided to the students...but that is labeled as success.

Question - has there been a grant application written, completed and submitted to the many companies and government agencies that offer monies to school districts for this purpose? If you say there aren't any available, I will challenge that statement and ask what research has been done.

Mr. Zigenfuss...you need to change your approach. Your document tells me and the taxpayers of STSD nothing except what you want, not what's best for the district.

Oh...BTW...when leased, laptops almost always require insurance by the leasing company at a tune of $80+ per system per 2 years (dependant on the company and provider). This is not listed in your research.

Insurance does not cover support and software options, only incidental damage and not neglect.

I apologize to Mr. Ziegenfuss for the misspelling of his name in my previous posts. Debate and constructive informed opposition I encourage, but the disrespect implied is purely unintentional here.

The MAC is a superior platform and better choice for schools. The PC platform is rife with bugs, driver issues, and incompatible hardware and software. That doesn't take into account the PC security bugs and problems. The district would have to hire additional IT specialists for each school just to make the constant updates to the Windows operating system.

Remember - students will be using these computers. These computers and software have to be 100% reliable or student learning is compromised. You can't interrupt every class for students to take the 5 minutes that it takes to boot up a PC system, or stop everytime a student's system freezes up or gets a blue screen.

Given these considerations, the long term cost of the PC platform would be far greater AND learning would be greatly reduced. It sounds like STSD put a great deal of thought into the decision.

Carol...you're kidding me right? You didn't just post this? OMG - biased and uniformed. Please do your homework prior to posting. Remember - as students may use them, parents who are accustomed to PCs with PCs at home will not be able to assist. I will, friends of my children will have my support...but my arms can reach only so far. Oh, and another fact...with managed services, it takes only one IT professional to update the entire district throughout the enterprise. This works on both PC and MAC platforms. And software is not partial to either platform.

How about this Carol? Remember we weren't debating which platform is better. The cost was being debated, especially for a strapped and budget tight district. How about you pay the difference in cost above what the PC will required of the district, and I will not have another word to say. Remember, before you answer, please consult and be aware of the numbers surrounding the TCS (total cost of support) for both platforms, the cost of leasing, and the cost of buy back or buy out, and insurance, and incidental damage. After all of this is presented, THEN it can be argued which is a better platform for the students.

I will ingnore the inate rudeness of your comments to anyone who disagrees with you and stay with the facts.

If you had read my comment, you would have read my comment that the long term cost of a PC platform would be greater than the Mac. That is the not only the purchase cost. It is the cost expended over the life of the PC. I stand by that comment. PCs need extra software and support that Macs do not need.

The main cost problem of PCs in the schools will be the unreliability of the PC operating system and the software. Anyone who uses a PC knows that they take forever to turn on and boot up, that the software will occasionally freeze up (almost daily) and that programs frequently stop operating and need to be shut down and restarted. If your car just randomly stopped running at some point each day, would you put up with it? Multiply that by 500. In addition, the users will be middle school students, who have limited computer knowledge. They will need some professional to look at the frozen PC, diagnose the problem, and get the computer running again. These professionals will need to be paid and there will need to be a minimum one of more in every building.

Finally, every computer interruption is a class interruption for the student and entire class. Reliable computers and software are essential to insure that learning time, and learning are maximized. Learning and instruction are the primary goals of the school.

"Innate rudeness..." C'mon Carol... Opposition is not rude. Uninformed spewing of facts and assumptions about the PC vs MAC platform is where you need begin your journey.

A total reimage of a computer takes 10 minutes, MAC and PC. The total cost of support is inherently higher for MAC than is a PC. The facts are supported.

To the residents of Salisbury - we are entering a time of strong budgetary conversations that are going to hit many different levels of the schools in our community. To base our classroom on technology, technology that is expensive, is not the way to go. There are many like Carol who associate the inability to learn on a failed classroom tool. I feel confident our teachers are not like this and Carol please stop before the hole that you are in becomes bigger and bigger.

We need to supplement our classrooms, not replace or add. We need to provide avenues, not just one direction to succeed.

Mr. Ziegenfuss - I strongly urge you and the board to do a comparison and to prepare many different types of proposals for the school board to review, and then ultimately vote upon by the board and/or residents of Salisbury. If at that time the MAC is chosen, so be it. As I have stated, I own both, support both, purchase both, insure both, administer both, play with both, but ultimately use the PC...because it is universal. I do not have a bias...just a realization of what my techs experience on a daily basis.

Mr. Ziegenfuss - I am offering my services to you to help you through this and to assist you with the preparation of such proposals. If you like, reach out to me and I would be more than happy to partner with you, to implement for our students and faculty the platform (MAC or PC, it doesn't matter) that is most correct for the current time, situation, and purchase for the district.

Since we are talking about serious taxpayer dollars I am sure there is a process of oversight in place. Thos that feel strongly enough should get involved and attending a school board meeting would be a good start. I finf this forum very informative and a service to the residents of Salisbury.
Article states the School Board vote is tomorrow. Time to step up and I am sure they will take public comment. Sorry if this repeats what others are saying. I didnt read all comments.

Salisbury Resident - Again you revert to personal insults and completely ignore the basis of my argument.

You don't deny that the PC platform is far less reliable than the Mac platform. You also say each computer freezup and reboot takes 10 minutes. If only one happens during each class, that's 10 minutes wasted in a 45 or 90 minute class period. I hope you can do the math. It's an unacceptable loss of learning time.

Since you claim to be tech savvy, you should understand this. The private sector is full of "IT folks" who don't understand the cost of downtime. Every employee who has to fix their computer freeze up on their own still gets paid for unproductive time. But, the IT folks say that they saved a few bucks on that computer. It's the same short sighted approach used by bean counters and failing companies.

How you think that I equated that to a student's inability to learn is beyond me. That's a completely different topic that I won't go into other than to say that most school problems are not the fault of the teachers, or underfunding. Almost all school problems are the result of bad parenting and government bureaucrats who think that they are education experts because they once went to school.

Carol - you're funny! You have made me laugh. Good luck in all that you do.

Missed you at the board meeting last night.

Relax Carol...

Oh, and by the way, I was at the meeting on Wednesday evening. It was beautiful to see the door of the MDF standing wide open with little regard to security. We had to walk right by on our way to the board room. With so many people in that building for the meeting, I am quite concerned extra security measures were not taken to protect the infrastructure of some of our most valuable resources - data. I enjoyed looking at all of the Apple servers in place, the data connections, the T-1 and fiber cables, the monitors, and my tally of expenses began to surmount even my expectations. The community has been snowed and is spending money on technology where it does not need to be spent. The irresponsibility of this contract is minor compared to what is in that closet, and the fact the door was left open during a public meeting is quite puzzling!

Trust me - there are no threats or ill-will intended by my comments. I am taking the stance and presenting an opposing opinion to what has been presented and implemented to our students and community in the form of technology. No comparisons have been made, no alternatives presented, and it is a shame that ideas are approved based on dollars alone. But if that were the case, what I saw still would have not been installed in the first place.

Don't worry, I will make sure you are included so you can either work with or against me.

Have fun Carol. Again, you have made me laugh. :)

I'll take this a step further. Most laptops have a 25% annual failure rate as established by Gartner and IDC. I would assume that middle/high school students would be rougher on them, but we can stick with the 25% number. Carol is right about downtime, but the problem is, MACs are more fragile then PCs, preferring style to function. MACs fail at a higher rate than every manufacturer, except Dell, whose business model is cheap components & a willingness to replace them when they break (even if the customer is frustrated dealing with the hassle).
I happen to sell Panasonic laptops & can tell you without doubt that the district would have the lowest TCO with a Panasonic Toughbook & their sub 5% annual failure rate. These are $1300-1500 devices with with the latest specs, 5.8lbs, & extremely durable. http://tinyurl.com/3bgvwq7

We even offer free access to an impartial Return On Investment Evaluator.
http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/why-toughbook-roi-evaluator.asp

I'm not trying to conduct a sales pitch here, (not my area), but knowing what I know about the industry, I do not see any feasible way that the district will receive the best value from a MAC deployment.
There are leases, managed services, deployment technologies, security, etc for any brand of laptop and software publishers give huge discounts for Education and have service-based contracts to prevent huge upfront investment.

If we want to get serious about this, let's get serious.