Question
1) I heard that schools must wait 6 months before reselling the computers to teacher/students/parents. Is that true?
Answer
1) No. Normally equipment purchased through the State Surplus system does carry a 6 month holding rule, but the purchase of the MLTI devices by SAUs and Teachers is a direct sale from the DOE, not State Surplus. All devices purchased through the procedures defined by the MLTI Asset Management Procedures and Buyout Forms and the Addendum (available for download from http://www.maine.gov/mlti/assets/) are exempt from the 6 month holding rule. If an SAU purchases devices through sales managed by the State Surplus system, they will be subject to the 6 month holding rule. Those sales will not take place until after the direct sale from the DOE to SAUs.
Question
2) Can other teachers or other staff purchase laptops through the opportunity referenced in Informational Letter #131(http://www.maine.gov/education/edletrs/2006/ilet/06ilet131.htm) and the associated "MLTI Teacher Laptop Form #1"?
Answer
2) No. The intent of the Addendum introduced in Informational Letter #131 is to ensure that current MLTI teachers have a laptop. If delivery schedules for the new device deployment turn out to be after June 30, 2006, the Department did not want teachers to have to "turn in" their MLTI laptop and be without a device until the new devices were delivered to the SAUs.
If other staff or teachers want to purchase an MLTI laptop, the SAU may purchase the devices and resell them to other staff and teachers. If the SAU intends to utilize it's entire current MLTI deployment for students, and needs more devices in order to provide devices for teachers and staff, the SAU may purchase additional devices located at other schools in Round 2 of the Buyout. Please see Informational Letter 104 (http://www.maine.gov/education/edletrs/2006/ilet/06ilet104.htm) and the MLTI Asset Management Procedures and Buyout Forms available for download from (http://www.maine.gov/mlti/assets/).
Question
3) If an SAU wants to purchase devices located at another SAU's middle school, does the SAU have to purchase all available devices at that middle school?
Answer
3) Yes. The DOE will advertise all available working units at middle schools to the SAUs in the MiddleMaine.org FirstClass system under the TC Conference folder.
Question
4) If our SAU is not buying the laptops, do we have to do anything to the software on the laptops? This also applies to those purchasing just some of their deployment.
Answer
4) Yes. The following should be removed before transferring the device to another SAU or State Surplus:
a) MLTI security precautions - the Department will distribute a package that the SAU must run on each laptop in order to disable the MLTI security and resets the Administrative password so that the recipients of the device may reimage and use the device without knowing your SAU's administrative password.
b) Commercial software that the SAU purchased and installed on the devices. If the SAU does not delete these titles, then the SAU is giving their licenses away (ie Office, Inspiration, etc).
c) Personal data. The Department will distribute a package that will aid with this process. |
