[K12OSN] LTSP and K12LTSP in British Columbia

[William Fragakis]

Yep, FreeNX rocks. That's the way I manage our servers and did my work
while away this weekend (via a laptop on a wireless hotel network).

On to your major issue: You must go outside the system to achieve
results at this point. Start with local gov't officials (mayor, city or
area council, school board) and even up to province (state) level. They
must come see the school, see and hear the story. You must, if you can,
get the story in the media. Nobody likes their tax dollars getting
pissed away just because... "we want to standardize". That much money
buys books, playground equipment, a couple of teachers, special ed tools
and a lot of other things. I don't think they want to tell parents they
can't have X because they've decided to "standardize". The media love
those stories and administrators hate the harsh daylight resulting.

Document, video, any way else you know to record what is happening so
they can't say it's not working. 

Have the teachers let the admins know, they need to keep LTSP. 

Also, emphasize this isn't about changing platforms but losing great
applications, stability, security (and still can't believe parents
aren't in a snit about the privacy holes in Windows because of malware).
And, make it known that the kids your students will be competing with in
the States, Asia, Europe and Africa for jobs are using Linux not
Windows.

You can't change closed minds but their bosses can ;-).

Best of luck,
William Fragakis
morrisbrandon.com

On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 21:14 -0500, k12osn-request at redhat.com wrote:
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2006 10:12:08 -0700
> From: "Jim Christiansen" <christiansen_j at hotmail.com>
> Subject: [K12OSN] LTSP and K12LTSP in British Columbia
> To: k12osn at redhat.com, jim at christiansens.ca
> Message-ID: <BAY125-F6378B24D9473EE33ACDD4F3F30 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
> 
> I've been absent from the list for a couple of months- just lurking
> since 
> getting K12LTSP5 up on a number of boxes, and I want to bring everyone
> up to 
> date.  My school, Prince Charles Secondary, in Creston, is now running
> 3 
> K12LTSP servers with a total of about 120 thin clients.  I deliver
> high-end 
> Cad and several other apps through crossover- everything else FOSS.
> 
> A week or so ago my principal brought in a sub teacher for me and I
> went to 
> visit Kamloops where EVERY elementary and middle school runs ltsp and
> high 
> schools, I understand, have moved to ltsp or are moving over soon.  I 
> visited the IT Manager and head Tech there for several hours and was
> amazed 
> how they ran each school.
[snip]
> I'm still the only school in our district running K12LTSP.  Last
> year, 
> sitting on the Tech Committee, in was told that Prince Charles
> Secondary 
> would be allowed to remain linux.  Later I was told that we were being
> moved 
> to windows...  standardization...  So much for committee decision.
> Our 
> school is the only school to have fully functional computers EveryDay.
> Our 
> number of computers is still growing in our school WITHOUT a budget...
> Our 
> technician has said that there is no way our school would run as well
> as it 
> dows it we used windows.  We can't switch over to windows without 
> $100,000.00.  A principal from nearby came to visit our school on two 
> occations last May to see how well our system worked.  He arranged for
> me to 
> purchase a server for K12LTSP and I scoped out 25 HPt5515 clients for
> 120 a 
> piece- total price of under $4000.00.   The lead teach found out- went
> to 
> the Superintendent -did I say our school district is millions in
> debt?? and 
> stopped the linux lab from happening.  THEN turned around and spent 
> $30,000.00 on a windows lab instead...  Oh well- end rant.
> 
> As we are still in debt Prince Charles Secondary won't move to
> windows.  We 
> offer so much with our system now it would take an army of
> technicians 
> months to make the same things happen in windows and that is
> accordinbg to 
> my local technician.
> 
> Thanks everyone for an awesome system.   Try out FreeNX!