School Board Approves Laptops For H.S. Teachers

The Haverford Township Board of School Directors approved the purchase of laptops for teachers, and hardware and software for the virtualization of Haverford Township School District servers at the board’s meeting on Thursday night.

The laptops are replacing desktop computers that are six to seven years old, School Board Vice President Maxine Murdoch said. Murdoch chaired the meeting for School Board President Denis Gray, who was away on vacation.

Jane Greenspun, the school district’s director of technology services, said the high school teachers are “very transient,” moving from classroom to classroom as they teach classes throughout the day.

“This helps them take their work with them as they move,” Greenspun said.

The school board voted unanimously to approve the purchase of 122 Dell laptop computers in the amount of $127,842 under a three-year lease/purchase agreement with TD Equipment Finance with annual lease payments of $43,485.93.

In a separate vote, the board unanimously approved the purchase of Network Virtualization hardware and software in the amount of $196,555.64 under a five-year lease/purchase agreement with TD Equipment Finance with annual lease payments of $41,079.69.

The school district currently has 24 separate servers, but “virtualization” of the servers would allow 24 box servers to be placed on hardware which Greenspun described as “blades” and incorporated into the virtual server, Greenspun said during a school board meeting last month.

At last month’s school board meeting, Greenspun made a presentation on the proposal to purchase the laptops and the hardware and software for the virtualization of school district servers.

She said both purchases are goals which are part of the district strategic plan for 2009-2013. The school district has already replaced teachers’ desktops computers with laptops at the elementary school and middle school levels, Greenspun said during her presentation last month.