The Greene County School Board approved two additional purchases as part of its summer projects during its March regular board meeting.

One of the items that the Board approved was upgrading all of the light fixtures and lights to LEDs in the elementary and middle schools for an amount not to exceed $210,000 with ROI Energy. Superintendent Brett Abbotts is excited to work with this company that has done projects with several other school districts, including Dallas Center-Grimes and Van Meter, as he explains some of the benefits that ROI brings.

“There will be some incentives that we’ll get to take advantage of, but the great thing about working with ROI is that they do it all on the backend, and then they pass the savings onto us and then we pay what the difference is of what they paid.”

The Board also approved to upgrade 50 desktop computers for an amount not to exceed $50,000 with Newegg Business. Abbotts explains that Microsoft announced that Windows 10 will become obsolete in October and so the district needed to migrate the desktop computers to Windows 11, which is what 21 desktops are slated to go through.

“So those are ones that are going to be a lot more higher performance, can take on all of the work that has to happen when you’re running the Computer Assisted Design software.”   

Abbotts points out that the other desktops are the standard ones that are primarily used by secretaries, administration and the business department. Additionally, Abbotts notes that some of those desktops are able to utilize Google Flex that can handle a Microsoft operating system on its platform for another four years until everything will be reviewed and overhauled. The payment for the computer upgrades is through Physical Plant and Equipment Levy and the district’s sales tax funds.