At Westside Community Schools in Omaha, Neb., Director of Information Technology Kent J. Kingston keeps the computers humming by staying on a strict cycle of replacement and recycling.
Despite the struggling economy and an effort by many school districts to cut costs and lengthen the time between hardware updates, Kingston says he鈥檚 been able to convince leaders in his 6,000-student district of the importance of replacing and upgrading computer equipment, a practice often called 鈥渞efreshing.鈥�
鈥淚 tried to get the board to look at refreshing computers much like the water [running through pipes] in the walls, or power,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just like paying the gas bill or the water bill or fixing the roofs.鈥�
Even though Westside and other districts have managed to stick to their regular refresh cycles, many districts are lengthening such cycles in an effort to get more time out of their technology and delay new spending. While some technology administrators say such cost-control measures are a necessity right now, others, like Kingston, counter that there comes a point when older equipment costs a district more鈥攊n upkeep, staff resources, and user downtime鈥攖han new purchases and upgrades.
鈥淵ou need to look at the total cost of ownership,鈥� says Richard S. Kaestner, the project director for an initiative on that topic at the Washington-based Consortium for School Networking, or CoSN. 鈥淪lowing down the refresh cycle may look good on paper, but does it solve the problem? The answer is, it鈥檚 not a great solution if you look at support costs and from the perspective of the end user.鈥�
鈥楶ushing the Limits鈥�
1. Make sure you have a complete inventory of the computers in your district, which includes the number, type, and age of each model.
2. Evaluate your computer refresh cycle. Does it fit your budget and the way staff members and students use the computers? Does it need to be shortened or lengthened?
3. Consider getting your IT workers certified to repair computers under warranty, an approach that can save a significant amount of time and money. (鈥淏uilding In-House Apple Expertise,鈥� this issue.)
4. Be particularly wary of significantly lengthening computer refresh cycles, a move that could result in more repairs needed, less productivity, and more computer downtime for users.
5. Consider nontraditional ways of updating or receiving computers, such as large-scale donations of used computers from local businesses.
Kingston says that in his Omaha district, each teacher has a Macintosh notebook computer, and a one-to-one-computing initiative is serving grades 8-12, which means each student also has a school laptop that he or she can use at school and at home. The district has about 2,600 laptops for the initiative.
Every three years, the teachers and students in the one-to-one program get new laptops. 鈥淲e started to see that with teachers and the high school students, by the end of the third year we were pushing the limits in terms of ram and processing speed and what they could and couldn鈥檛 do with software,鈥� says Kingston.
To purchase the new machines, the district opted for a lease-to-own program that has it paying about $1.3 million per year for the models over three years, he says. But that isn鈥檛 the end of those machines, he says. Those that still appear to be working well are used in the elementary grades. 鈥淚n elementary school,鈥� he says, 鈥渢hey鈥檙e doing word processing, Excel spreadsheets; 鈥hey鈥檙e not doing the high-end things that put a lot of stress on the machine.鈥�
The less usable computers are put on the shelf for when the Westside district鈥檚 technology team needs to harvest parts.
Other districts are feeling more strapped.
Mark Westhoff, the director of technology for the Lincolnshire-Prairie View district in a northern suburb of Chicago, says financial constraints have forced his district to extend the computer-refresh cycle. He says the district is in the middle of a three-year lease on the current batch of equipment, but when that lease runs out, 鈥渋f the computers are still working and the applications we need are still running on them, even if we have the money we鈥檙e not going to refresh. That wouldn鈥檛 make sense.鈥�
Previously, the district鈥檚 refresh cycle was three years, but Westhoff says he believes it may extend to five for the 700 or so laptops and desktops in the 1,700-student district.
鈥淪chool districts do what they have to do,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 have the money to buy new equipment, we鈥檒l do the best we can to make the older equipment work.鈥�
Last time the K-8 district refreshed about 300 computers the cost was $122,000 per year for three years, he says.
Creative Tactics
But Kaestner of CoSN says districts shouldn鈥檛 take that idea too far. 鈥淲hen you鈥檙e trying to support new operating systems and integrate them with new and old networks, you have to train people on both systems, which creates system issues and training issues,鈥� and those problems can add costs, he says.
Kaestner says most districts have some type of refresh cycle in place, and even during tough economic times should try to stick with the schedule they鈥檝e outlined.
Sometimes, districts come up with creative tactics for refreshing their equipment.
In the 57,000-student Boston school system, where there are about 20,000 instructional computers and little money to upgrade outdated hardware, Chief Information Officer Kim A. Rice cobbled together 鈥淧roject Refresh.鈥� The initiative allows the district to partner with companies such as Blue Cross Blue Shield to receive their 2- or 3-year-old PCs. The goal is to have all computers in the district be under 5 years old.
鈥淪ome people think I鈥檓 crazy to accept gently used machines,鈥� Rice says, adding that getting all those computers in working order can bea 鈥渕aintenance nightmare.鈥� But she points out that 鈥渢he intent is not to have a fleet of computers all alike, but to get 20,000 functional computers that kids can bang away on and use all day.鈥�
