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Sunday, September 16, 2012

MCPS Staff Confirm, No Contract for Promethean Board purchase

On September 11, 2012, the Montgomery County Board of Education (BOE) spent over an hour discussing Superintendent Joshua Starr's plan to spend $14.5 million.  The resolution that the BOE voted on did not authorized the BOE President to sign any contracts.  Instead, the resolution authorized staff to make purchases without further BOE oversight or review, and without the signature of the BOE President, as is done on all other BOE contracts. 

Listen to the words of the MCPS Chief Technology Officer, Sherwin Collette, as he explains to the BOE that the state contract Starr said they would use has actually expired and is being re-issued.  
(It was a 5 year contract that began in 2007 and expired on April 28, 2012.  2007 + 5 = 2012. Contract has expired. No contract!)

Mr. Collette explains that a new state contract is not yet in place.  

So, exactly how can the BOE authorize the spending of any sums without a contract, and without knowing what will be the actual cost of the 2,000 Promethean Boards?

Welcome to Oz.

Video Minute  55:30 
BOE MemberPhil Kauffman: "...Talk to me about the contract vehicle that we are using to buy the Promethean Boards."
MCPS Chief Technical Officer, Sherwin Collette:  "So, we were planning to use a state contract that was let, um, in fact the state has re-issued the RFP for that, um. And, it is unclear at this point when they will make an announcement about the successor to the vehicle that we were using..."

3 comments:

  1. stool
    good word to describe this

    ReplyDelete
  2. BOE never voted that Promethean Board was "standard equipment."

    ReplyDelete
  3. This technology is and will be outdated by the time I finish typing this comment. I was not impressed at all at how this technology works. Seems like Mr Starr has outside interests supporting his drive to spend OUR money on this dying product.

    ReplyDelete

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