Free and Open Source Software in K - 12 Education
Death of an Open Source Project
After over two year of providing reliable, accessible and safe technology to over 110 students and 8 faculty members, the Linux Thin Client Network at Liberty High School in Benicia was shut down at the end of last semester. Not that the technology failed to deliver; total cost of the project over the two years including new servers (4), network switches (4), PXE NICs (20), recycled workstations used as thin client terminals (55) and consulting time (setup, installation and 2-years maintenance) was just under $20,000. The school recently installed a Windows "media" Lab consisting of 8 workstations for $10,000; just hardware. No servers, infrastructure, setup or maintenance.
Much was learned over the last two years, as several conditions combined to eventually kill the project. Retirement/turn-over of key supporting school staff members, including the IT Director who initially green-lighted the project, was the biggest contributor to the demise. The new IT Directory refused to accept the Linux network and flatly ignored any attempts to work together in integrating his new Windows infrastructure with the Linux network. More than half of the teachers at the school when the project started retired last year. While self-described "technophobes", these educators fought past their initial unfamiliarity and embraced a computer system that, finally, "just worked". The incoming teachers wanted nothing to do with anything that wasn't Windows-based.
The Superintendent, despite the measurable savings we provided, would not allow district money to support a technology system that was not installed and supported by the district IT staff. Thus, the school had to either raise the roughly $4K a year to provide outside support or forgo any proactive action and take their chances. They took their chances starting in April 2008 yet were the only school to be fully up and running on Day 1 of this school year despite no technical intervention for over 5 months.
So our district continues with their financial crisis, asking for more monetary donations just to keep a little over half of the district-wide Windows workstations operational for the students. It saddens me not that just a Linux project was scrapped, but that our educational leaders, in an affluent community, can not adapt to changing times. I worry for the students, my high-school-aged daughter, and the future they're being prepared for.
Much was learned over the last two years, as several conditions combined to eventually kill the project. Retirement/turn-over of key supporting school staff members, including the IT Director who initially green-lighted the project, was the biggest contributor to the demise. The new IT Directory refused to accept the Linux network and flatly ignored any attempts to work together in integrating his new Windows infrastructure with the Linux network. More than half of the teachers at the school when the project started retired last year. While self-described "technophobes", these educators fought past their initial unfamiliarity and embraced a computer system that, finally, "just worked". The incoming teachers wanted nothing to do with anything that wasn't Windows-based.
The Superintendent, despite the measurable savings we provided, would not allow district money to support a technology system that was not installed and supported by the district IT staff. Thus, the school had to either raise the roughly $4K a year to provide outside support or forgo any proactive action and take their chances. They took their chances starting in April 2008 yet were the only school to be fully up and running on Day 1 of this school year despite no technical intervention for over 5 months.
So our district continues with their financial crisis, asking for more monetary donations just to keep a little over half of the district-wide Windows workstations operational for the students. It saddens me not that just a Linux project was scrapped, but that our educational leaders, in an affluent community, can not adapt to changing times. I worry for the students, my high-school-aged daughter, and the future they're being prepared for.
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Comment by Michael Paric on February 3, 2009 at 1:18am - Thanks indigo; I do attend the Bay Area LUG in San Francisco however I haven't met with anyone yet who has the desire to get involved with Educational Linux services beyond the occasional volunteer efforts. I'm re-focusing my efforts on smaller schools, private and charter which may be more flexible in their overall technology plans.
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Comment by indigo196 on February 1, 2009 at 12:02pm -
Perhaps you can get this off the ground again if you 'bring the support'... If your IT director and his staff are this phobic about anything other than Windows they are not keeping their jobs based on technical merit.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam
See if you can get some help from your Ubuntu LoCo or other Linux User Groups.
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Comment by Urko M. on January 7, 2009 at 9:15pm -
This is such a sad story...
I don't know what to say. 55 terminals, fully supported, during 2 years, or just 16 computers, with no support whatsoever. It seems an easy choice to me, but apparently it isn't.
If I were paranoid, I'd start checking for bank transfers to the decision makers from dubious origins.
We all lose with this.
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