As some of you know, North Andover is in the process of building a new High School, due to open in February 2004. And, up until a couple of weeks ago, it was slated to be all PC. I'd mounted a quiet campaign with our Superintendent (who I know well, from working closely with him on various projects) - giving him stacks of reading material on total cost of ownership, other school systems that use Macs extensively - everything I could dig up to bolster my case. He even started to read about OS X on his own and I could sense that he wasn't quite as convinced of the PC option. However, the decision wasn't up to him - the building committee, the HS principal, our district business manager (who was very convinced that PC's were the way to go) and the computer consultants who were part of the project team all had some say in the matter. Our superintendent had suggested that I talk to the building committee, but with everything else I do in the district, I had neither the time nor the energy for a battle I didn't think I could win.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, our local Apple rep called. Wanted to come and do a presentation on why they should reconsider. Not sure what he said to our business manager, but he must have been pretty persuasive. They called a meeting, then our HS principal, network manager and HS secretary went off to Shrewsbury, MA to see their new HS which is a mixed OS X and Windows environment and they came back impressed.
The real clincher though, was the dark cloud...our school operating budget for next year has been slashed by $2.2M (off $31M) - and along with staff, one of the major casualties is professional development. And guess what the professional development next year at the HS was supposed to be? Yup. Training on Windows PC's. No training. No PC's.
Yippee! I exaggerate a little there - there will be some PC's in the language and science labs because of certain software that they want to use which is PC-only, but for the most part, everything else will be shiny new Macs running OS X!!!
Our superintendent said to me (ribbing me a bit) "see, I do listen to you sometimes". I'd like to think I at least helped to open the door a crack - got them thinking a bit - but without Lars from Apple's last minute bid for a hearing, OS X's proven abilities in Shrewsbury and yes, our budget woes for FY04, I doubt I would have gotten anywhere. However, I'll take victory over the dark side any way I find it!!
