NH High school grad rate is #2 in New England

[BF66389]

Originally Posted by NH2008

I agree. If they are selling 2 for 1 packs, the school could simply reduce their orders by 50% and put the extra $$ towards extracurriculars, arts programs, or whatever. I would love to see more kids walking to school but the wheely bags should be sufficient to prevent back strain.

That's not really an option in most cases; it's kind of like Microsofts "home use" program:
For most of their programs if you use it at work, you can then get another copy of it for your home computer (10 legitimate licenses in total). BUT, if you have an office of 10 people, you can't buy just 5 licenses and run the "home use" licenses on the other 5 computers.

Again, I have no idea if this is actually the case- but it is getting very common nowadays.

I also think that going to CD would be a great idea- even if you have to print the chapter (some documents are just hard to read in an online format)- you won't waste the paper of printing EVERYTHING, just what you need. Some of my wife's grad school texts are actually "free" online...but they have advertisements in them- not appropriate for middle school kids; but a GREAT idea for grad school students.

Do a lot of kids walk to school in NH? I don't live close enough to one to see...while I know in some areas the cost of clearing the snow to create safe walkways probably exceeds the cost of buses- but I'm sure in some towns its an option in the fall/spring at least.

I'm actually trying to decide if effort is best spent on the school board (responsible for biggest chunk of budget) or budget committee (responsible for examining everything else). I'm pretty much getting sick of complaining about issues...I've got the time...might as well run for something.

[NH2008]

I did think of that, but ultimately when stores say "buy one, get one free" the second really isn't free - if schools said they only wanted one book per pupil, the publishers could charge less than they do for 2. If the publisher wouldn't allow schools to break up the packs, I can't see why the schools couldn't band together and insist on single copies. After all, they are the market.

There is a push to encourage kids to walk to school when feasible. I have heard that the fed will contribute to building sidewalks and stop lights within a two mile radius of public schools if certain conditions are met by the local gov't. We live near our local schools and I do see kids walking by every afternoon. (usually headed right to Dunkin' Donuts...

[BF66389]

I agree- there is tremendous bargaining power in higher quantity buys. The real problem, I'm sure- is organization of those buys.

That said- I think a very good idea to address that organization would be a state-wide resource brokerage system. For example- every school district posts the ISBN & Quantity of the books it is purchasing for the coming year (with some deadline so it does not become hard to organize); the schools that are buying the same ISBN are automatically provided a list with the contact information of the registered representative at the other schools via e-mail (again on a given date). Then, the representatives can talk to each other to organize the group buy. The system (very simple) is nothing more than a tool to connect people so it would be incredibly easy/cheap to setup. By keeping it simple you can't really "force" schools to use it...BUT- it also makes it damn near free to build/operate- so it would take a very low participation % to justify its usage.

A similar system was used by the Army to reduce low-level IT costs; obviously due to the greater size it became more automated once it paid for itself...but there is tremendous power in getting folks talking. It's not due to lazy people either...its just really really hard unless you have something to give you the connections you need (how else would a supply clerk in Brookline know about a school in Littleton wanting 500 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird).

That push for walking...awesome. The *hard* part would be having some of the closer route bus-drivers operating on such a broken schedule. That said- during the "walking" season- perhaps these folks could be doing the field/fall/spring maintenance?