One of the contracts cited was for the San Diego, CA school district. We know that there was no Request for Proposal (RFP) put out for the interactive white board procurement in MCPS, nor any contract for the MCPS installations, so how did San Diego choose their interactive white board product? Here's a recent San Diego article that addresses that very issue.
voicesofsandiego.org/education: Legal Questions on How Schools Chose Their Whiteboard Brand
February 25, 2010
Emily Alpert
In a recent story, I wrote about why teachers and parents are split about whether new classroom technology is worthwhile and should have been prioritized ahead of other needed school repairs...
...One outside attorney who specializes in cases dealing with public bidding questioned whether the school district stretched the rules when it singled out Promethean. Attorney Jason Thornton of Marks, Golia & Finch, said if government agencies used the same reasoning as San Diego Unified, they could block companies from competing for business. A school district could equip one or two schools with a specific brand of a product, then match other schools to the same equipment.
San Diego Unified argued that Promethean "uniquely met the district's requirements," according to school district attorney Sandra Chong...
...Instead, San Diego Unified ended up ruling out the two companies that an internal team otherwise ranked highest because they didn't have existing contracts to install Promethean products -- the only brand the school district would accept. Pete Spencer, a local businessman who wanted to install the whiteboards, sued the school district, challenging whether that was a fair reason to designate a specific brand. He settled with San Diego Unified and the two winning installation companies for $42,000 earlier this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment
If your comment does not appear in 24 hours, please send your comment directly to our e-mail address:
parentscoalitionmc AT outlook.com