Products
How to Afford Interactive Whiteboards
3/1/2011 By:
While it would be challenging to find a teacher who’d turn down an
interactive whiteboard, finding the funds to pay for these high-ticket
items proves just as challenging. We thought it would be interesting
to ask districts how they pay for their whiteboards. We hope their
tales help other districts looking to increase their technology.
Hamilton
Township
(NJ) School
District
How many IWBs
do you have?
42 Epson BrightLinks. Thirtyeight
are in sixth- and seventhgrade
classrooms; the other
four are in eighth-grade and ELL
classrooms.
www.epson.com/brightlink
Total cost (including
installation)
$73,910. (Each Epson BrightLink
450Wi, including wall mount, is
$1,799.) The district completed
the installation internally.
How did you fund them?
“We bought 38 through the Teaching and Learning
with Essential New Technologies in the 21st Century
Grant [TALENT 21 Grant]. It’s a federal stimulus project
funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009,” says Scott Scott, technology coordinator.
The district was awarded $1.43 million, which it used
for BrightLinks, additional staff, and professional
development.
How will you sustain this funding
and/or buy more IWBs?
“We’re looking for funding and grant opportunities from
a variety of sources, using some Title I funds for eighthgrade
Title 1 classes, and using basic-skills money and
other funds to put IWBs into additional eighth-grade and
ELL classes.”
Forsyth
County
Schools
Cumming, GA
How many IWBs
do you have?
There are almost 3,000
Promethean interactive
whiteboard systems, including
the ActivBoard 500. There is
one in every classroom, and new
schools continue to buy them.
www.prometheanworld.com
Total cost (including
installation)
“The initial 1,500 boards cost
$5.4 million, which included
installation and training,”
says Jill Hobson, director of
instructional technology. She
estimates that each board costs
$3,000, including installation.
How did you fund them?
The initial IWBs came from a countywide multimilliondollar
bond referendum approved in spring 2005 by
88 percent of the voters. Since then, Hobson says,
the district has passed more funding to help purchase
whiteboards, and new building proposals have
whiteboards factored into them. “We continue to have
enormous community support for funding technology.”
How will you sustain this funding
and/or buy more IWBs?
“We’ll continue to have a commitment to the
Promethean ActivClassroom in all classrooms. As we
build, we intend to put IWBs in those rooms as long as
we have school-board and community support.”
Audubon
Park
Elementary
School
Orlando, FL
How many IWBs
do you have?
The school has a Promethean
ActivBoard in every classroom
and in special classrooms.
www.prometheanworld.com
Total cost (including
installation)
Last year the PTA spent $25,000
on technology, including IWBs,
laptops, sound systems, and
professional development. “We
pay for the entire package,”
says Heather Traynham, PTA
president. “Installation is
factored into our costs.”
How did you fund them?
The PTA bought two ActivBoards to show parents to
encourage them to help buy enough for all classrooms.
“We held golf tournaments and fund-raising campaigns
and partnered with the Orlando Chili Cook-off to bring in
partners and raise money for tech,” Traynham says.
How will you sustain this funding
and/or buy more IWBs?
“We have a lot of support that will continue for the
next few years. We plan to upgrade the software of
the whiteboards, pay for more training, and buy more
ActiVotes.”
Milton-
Union
Exempted
Village
Schools
West Milton,
OH
How many IWBs
do you have?
100 SMART Boards. They are
in about 98 percent of the
classrooms. “We’re building a
new building, and when it’s done
there will be a SMART Board in
every room,” says Mick Nealeigh,
technology coordinator.
www.smarttech.com
Total cost (including
installation)
About $120,000; each SMART
Board costs $1,200. Teachers
who were expert trained others
and shared lesson plans they
found online, Nealeigh says.
“We saved money by doing the
training and installation with our
tech and custodial staffs.”
How did you fund them?
Some of the IWBs came out of the technology budget or
from general building funds, says Scott Bloom, director
of curriculum and special services. In addition, Nealeigh
asked principals if they had leftover textbook or other
moneys, and three principals scraped together a good
chunk to go to IWBs. The district also used stimulus
funding.
How will you sustain this funding
and/or buy more IWBs?
Five more IWBs were included in the new building’s
construction budget. There’s an occasional firmware
upgrade, Nealeigh says, but SMART software updates
are free, so his ongoing funding will go to replacing
projectors and professional development.
San Mateo–
Foster City
School
District
Foster City,
CA
How many IWBs
do you have?
Approximately 370 Luidia eBeam
interactive solutions (including
the eBeam slate, projector, voice
amplification, and document
camera) are in all K–8 traditional
classrooms.
www.luidia.com
Total cost (including
installation)
The district spent around $1.8
million to supply a standard
set of interactive tools for each
classroom, IT director Rick Edson
says. Installation cost about $500
per classroom including raceway,
power for the projector, installation
of the projector, and all cabling.
How did you fund them?
“A voter-approved bond in 2008 provided each
classroom with a standard set of technology tools,”
Edson says.
How will you sustain this funding
and/or buy more IWBs?
The bond funding was a onetime opportunity that
provided these technologies to most classrooms.
Silver Hill
Horace Mann
Charter
School
Haverhill, MA
How
many
IWBs
do you
have?
23 Collaborative Classroom Suites (includes the
Mobi System, CPS student-response systems,
and the ExamView Assessment Suite). As each
classroom has one teacher’s Mobi and four
Mobi Learners, there are more than 100 Mobis
throughout the school.
www.einstruction.com
Total
cost
(including
installation )
The education list price for a Mobi is $399. A
Student-Centered Learning Pack, containing
three Mobi Learners and one Mobi and a
docking station, is $899. An individual Mobi
Learner costs $299.
How did
you fund
them?
Silver Hill Horace Mann used a combination
of grants, including the Horace Mann Charter
School startup grant ($525,000 for three
years), an ARRA (American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act) stimulus grant ($135,000 for
two years), and an IDEA grant ($125,000 for
two years), says Euthemia Gilman, executive
director. “We used these grants to purchase
hardware, professional development, and
installation. The technology became the
foundation for curriculum.”
How will
you
sustain
this
funding
and/or
buy more
IWBs?
The school will keep going after grants. “Race
to the Top will provide the continuation of
professional development by eInstruction for
the life of the RTTT, which is four years. The
technology is now the basis and measuring
stick as the staff begins to select a new
reading-science-history system to also mesh
with the technology.”
Upper Darby
School District
Drexel Hill, PA
How
many
IWBs
do you
have?
200 PolyVision interactive whiteboards
(including the PolyVision TS, Walk and Talk,
and ENO) are in various classrooms.
www.polyvision.com
Total
cost
(including
installation )
For the past three years, Upper Darby had a
total tech budget of $1.2 million, of which a
portion went to IWBs. The district handles
installations on its own.
How did
you fund
them?
Upper Darby uses three methods to purchase
technology: a lease-purchase program;
grants, home and school contributions; and
the Education & Arts Foundation. “The leasepurchase
plan enables Upper Darby School
District to maximize our technology-equipment
budget allocation by minimizing the annual
impact on the local taxpayer,” says Ed Smith,
director of business management. “We finance
whiteboards and other technology over a fiveyear
period. Last year we financed $600,000
of equipment at an interest rate of 2.41 percent,
which translates to an annual budget impact of
$124,000.” The foundation obtains smaller grants
that help pay for additional tech purchases.
How will
you
sustain
this
funding
and/or
buy more
IWBs?
“We are five years into our leasing program
and have $450,000 built into next year’s
budget. We won’t know about other money
until we get the funding estimate from the
state. It’s a dire situation, so we’re keeping
our fingers crossed that cuts won’t be too
significant.”
Resources
eInstruction’s Web site has a section on grants that includes
templates and a list of federal grants that eInstruction is eligible
for. Here’s a link: www.einstruction.com/research-and-funding/ grants-funding.
Promethean and the National PTA have launched a fund-raising
contest. www.prometheanworld.com/server.php?show=nav.21617
Other IWB Vendors
¦ Hitachi
www.interactive-boards.com
¦ Mimio
us.mimio.com/en-US.aspx
¦ Numonics
www.numonics.com