[K12OSN] Why Linux?

["Terrell Prudé, Jr."]

This goes directly to something that I've said before.  In order to 
convince idiotic school boards like that one, you have to make them 
*look bad* to someone that they think matters.  You can't do it 
yourself; they'll just label you a troublemaker and fire you.  Rather, 
you get parents to do it.  If you're not in a rich school district, it's 
easier.

If the Board members don't feel like they're in *imminent threat* of 
very bad PR to parents, then they'll likely take your five pound pile of 
paper and have it become five pounds of shredded recycle-bin fodder in 
short order, if they even bother to shred it.  What that means is 
convincing some parents to come with you to the school board meeting and 
bringing this up.  If you can get a local news reporter, so much the 
better.  Your position has to be that of "a teacher simply trying to 
give my kids access to top-notch technology without us losing our 
shirts."  Remember that; you've got to come off like Mr. Nice Guy 
Teacher-Type Who Cares Only About His Wonderful Kids; newspapers and 
parents like that.  If you can get other teachers to come with you, 
that's good, but I've discovered that parents are more effective.

--TP

Rob Owens wrote:

>If the school board wants to be directly involved in the IT decisions, make them sorry.  Print out every email response you have gotten on this list.  Print out every testimonial you can find on the internet.  Print out every "why linux is better" article you can find.  Top it off with a concise and well-written recommendation from yourself.  Drop this 5 pound pile of paper on their table and say "this is why we should use linux".  Of course they won't read it all.  
>
>If they do read it all, they will quite likely be convinced that linux is the way to go.  If they don't read it, they would be taking a big risk by saying no to linux--they have a pile of documentation in front of them stating why linux is better, so they'd better be ready to produce an equally-sized pile of documentation countering your claims if they want to deny your request and still appear like they know what they are doing.  Imagine if the taxpayers found out...
>
>-Rob
>
>
> --- On Fri 11/05, Martin Woolley < sysadmin at handsworth.bham.sch.uk > wrote:
>From: Martin Woolley [mailto: sysadmin at handsworth.bham.sch.uk]
>To: k12osn at redhat.com, tuxnician at execulink.com
>Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 08:32:53 +0000
>Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Why Linux?
>
>On Thursday 04 Nov 2004 5:35 pm, Jason wrote:<br>> Hi Everyone.<br>><br><br>> I was wondering if anyone has some information, suggestions,<br>> presentations etc of the benefits of Linux/LTSP in the educational area.<br>>   I have some websites bookmarked but I'm looking for more personal<br>> experience from a technician, teacher etc point of view.<br><br>You can find a discussion of our experiences here<br>http://www.openhgs.org/moin.cgi/LinuxProject<br>and how we see things going here<br>http://www.openhgs.org/moin.cgi/DepartmentalPlans<br>and here is some stuff on why the original decision to move to Linux was <br>taken; this was before I came on the scene (I'm the techie)<br>http://www.openhgs.org/linuxmig.htm<br>-- <br>Regards<br>Martin Woolley<br>
>