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No Paper Pile-Ups for NJ School Board?The room settles to a quiet hum, people settle into their seats and whip out their slim, sleek laptops. No, we're not at a technology seminar for IT professionals; we're at the Easton, NJ, Area School Board meeting. Easton's school board has become the third in the area to pursue the popular paperless route -- a decision made by Superintendent Dennis Riker, who crunched the numbers and saw where the "cash grows greener" -- on the other side of the legal pad.After realizing that "laptopping the school board" could save some considerable cash, he approached Apple Computers and asked for a donation. The rest, as they say, is history: Apple obliged, donating a dozen laptops for the nine-member school board, including two administrators, and the board secretary. Solid savings incentives backed up Riker's decision to end the school board's endless paper trail: he and Thomas Drago, Easton's technology director, recognized those savings would come from the time the board secretary spent taking minutes, photocopying them, and then hiring a courier service to deliver the papers -- twice a month. Board members may also take their notebooks home with them, allowing them, and and anyone interested to learn about the board's most recent agenda information, by logging on to their website at - Eastond.org. Easton's board is also considering putting the yearly school budget on DVD, replacing the up-to-5-inch-thick books used for that purpose today. The district negotiated a three-year lease last year to bring Apple's laptops to teachers -- 299 in all; desktop stations for classrooms, arriving at a grand total of 654; 275 printers, 16 Wi-Fi stations, and maintenance and support services for software for K-4th grades. The cost? $1,659,666. The long-term savings? Priceless. By Catherine Van Herrin - Laptopical Thursday, April 14, 2005 |
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