By Eileen Oldfield, Staff Writer
The school district will spend about $130,473 on technology upgrades with about $90,473 of the money being used toward computers for Manville High School and Weston School, and the remaining $40,000 going toward wireless Internet at Manville High School and Roosevelt School.
”The computers have a five-year replacement date,” Superintendent Johanna Ruberto said. “We want to replace them and keep them current.”
The district will purchase approximately 48 Dell computers through a state contract, and will spend $34,729 on the computers for Manville High School, and $55,744 on the computers for Weston School.
The state contract guarantees the lowest price on the computers, regardless of whether the district goes out to bid on the service, Business Administrator Kim Clelland said.
Normally, the district would submit requests for bids to various vendors when contracting various services; however, the state contract permits the district to skip the process while ensuring the lowest price on the services.
The computers do not come with any special programs or software, and will be placed in classrooms and computer labs at each school for use by teachers and students, Dr. Ruberto said.
”Twenty-first century classrooms indicate the integration of technology does (allow teachers) to differentiate instruction (for students),” Dr. Ruberto said.
The district used a cooperative service agreement through the Middlesex Educational Service Commission cooperative purchasing agreement to get its contract for the wireless installation. The agreement includes setting up the building so it can receive wireless Internet, and the equipment necessary to provide it. The district’s technology staff will do the installation in-house, instead of paying an outside company to install it.
The cooperative purchasing agreement also allows the district to skip its typical bidding process, since the education services commission does the bidding for the district, the administrators said.
”We went through the Middlesex Education Services Commission because it’s a cooperative purchasing agreement, so we get the best price,” Dr. Ruberto said.
”We’re required to follow the public contracts bidding laws,” Ms. Clelland said. “We would need to go out to bid if we didn’t go through the cooperative purchasing agreement. They’ve already gone to bid and done all that work for us. What happens is they go out to bid for all that so we don’t have to spend the time and money going out to bid.”
The installations will occur during the summer.
