School board OKs new server purchase

Schools in Washington will soon get a big technology boost.

On Monday, the school board approved the purchase of a new server and storage for the district.

'It's part of our technology plan,” Superintendent Willie Stone said. 'The time was up for a replacement.

'If you skip many years in technology, you get way behind and everything becomes obsolete.”

The board looked at two quotes, one from EnCompass Iowa for $72,050 and one from Hewlett Packard Enterprise for $115,936.60. The board unanimously agreed to go with the EnCompass Iowa quote.

'This is less than the cost of the national contract price that is reflected on the (Hewlett-Packard) quote,” Stone said.

Stone said that the server will be for the entire school district.

Earlier this month, the board agreed to acquire 500 new student computers and 10 teacher computers on a three-year lease from Apple at a cost of $688,865 for the high school.

The new laptops will be 13-inch MacBook Airs with upgraded processors that will show significant improvement in performance and extended battery life.

Teachers will receive the same laptops but with a larger hard dive and a different color.

The current student laptops are on their fourth year.

The old computers will be sent to recycler Total Technology for $193,898 to help cover the costs of the new devices.