At its Wednesday, 7 p.m., March 14 meeting (agenda: http://goo.gl/QyRNf ), the Monrovia Board of Education will, among other things ...
~ Hear a report saying it won't be able to pay its bills. "We are projecting a negative $1,280,625 Ending Fund Balance at the end of 2013-14. ..." and worse in the future. That estimate assumes voters reject a tax hike. http://goo.gl/ydVqP
~ Consider paying $21,314 for a one-year contract to SchoolLook/SchoolWires to provide "web hosting for student email and parent portal." ( http://goo.gl/bDDEu ) Opinion: I dunno about this. Unless there's something I'm missing, $21k a year seems like way too much money for what sounds like a boilerplate set-up-and-forget portal/email system.
~ Will consider buying classroom audio-visual equipment for a cost of $731,367. http://goo.gl/SFnBW
- Brad Haugaard
I won't be able to make the meeting but Google Apps provides email accounts for FREE to educational institutions with many big name universities using it. If you or know anyone else attending, mentioning this might save the school a large chunk of change. Some of the licensing fees is probably going to the parent portal system though...providing parents the ability to login and manage their children's eduction maybe? Anyway, it still sounds like someone out there is spending more money than they need with no clue on what they are throwing money into.http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/edu/
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