Update November 30, 2012: Someone at the State of Maryland has now added in the name "Promethean" on the drop down menu for the Master Hardware Contract. Promethean didn't exist on the list as of the date of this posting, and the Master Contract didn't even exist as of the date of the Board of Education vote. Is someone at the State of Maryland now attempting to cover up that the Board of Education voted on an expired contract?
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Yesterday, Councilmember Hans Riemer enthusiastically tweeted "End of story" to the purchase by MCPS of 2,000 Promethean Boards.
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Yesterday, Councilmember Hans Riemer enthusiastically tweeted "End of story" to the purchase by MCPS of 2,000 Promethean Boards.
Councilmember Riemer had hung his hat on the MCPS "story" that they were going to use a State of Maryland Contract (see minute 43 of video) to purchase 2,000 Promethean Boards. But, the Maryland State contract wasn't signed until the day after the Montgomery County Council hearing and vote!
And guess what? When the Maryland Master Hardware Contract was approved by the Board of Public Works on November 14th, the approved Contract DID NOT INCLUDE PROMETHEAN as an approved contractor. See for yourself. Click here and click on the Select Manufacturer list. Do you see Promethean listed?
Yet, Promethean's competitor SMART Technologies is listed.
It is now clear that the Maryland State Master Hardware Contract that had been cited by Superintendent Joshua Starr in his resolution to the Board of Education on September 11th does not include Promethean as a contractor. Does Superintendent Starr have an explanation for his use of a contract that was not only expired, but even the renewal doesn't cover the purchase cited in his Resolution to the Board of Education?
We look forward to Councilmember Riemer's next Tweet of the next version of MCPS' cover up/story regarding the purchase of 2,000 Promethean brand Interactive White Boards with taxpayer dollars.
"Click here" link doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteThanks. It has been corrected. Please try again.
DeleteI think the pull down list on the site is for manufacturers and based on what manufacturer's products you want the site will tell you what contractors are authorized to provide those products. So I think (correct me if I'm wrong) Promethean would be a product but the contractor would be Dell in this case. I tried selecting the "SMART Technologies" option but it looked to me like there weren't any contractors authorized to sell it. I take this to mean that there aren't any authorized contractors for Promethean (because it's not listed) and there also aren't any authorized contractors for SMART Technologies but there might have been at some prior point. It's also not clear to me how smart boards qualify in any of the categories listed, i.e. they are not servers, printers or network communication equipment.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct that Dell could be a Promethean provider in the future, but they are not currently listed to sell those products as the contract was approved.
DeleteWhat could happen in the future is irrelevant to the BOE Resolution of September 11th. As of Sept. 11th, the BOE approved an EXPIRED contract. The BOE did not approve the use of this new contract. And, even if MCPS somehow wants to bootstrap the BOE vote to this new contract, Promethean isn't there.
I inquired about where in the contract Interactive White Boards would be classified. It is Category 1 - Servers and Associated Peripherals.